


Taming Winter

by Runlights



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Rumlow is a dickbag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:44:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 91,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runlights/pseuds/Runlights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-TWS: The Winter Soldier struggles to cope with freedom without a mission. Steve Roger is trying to find and rehumanize his friend, but Brock Rumlow is using the past as a way to recapture the Winter Soldier not just for HYDRA but himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Укрощение зимы](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6159745) by [Kana_Go](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kana_Go/pseuds/Kana_Go)



> Chapters are laid out with three sections each, and because of that, they may vary greatly in size depending on the content. This fanfic has not been beta-read, so excuse any errors within.

“Follow me.”

Brock Rumlow knew better than to refuse a direct order from the SHIELD head, Alexander Pierce, and he fell in line with the man’s elbow as they moved through the United States Conciliate. It was said that Pierce, ever the authority on security, intelligence, and able to chat a room full of people down, was on his way to becoming Secretary of Defense in the next few years. Being relatively new to SHIELD, having something to prove, he knew that he had to rub elbows with the higher ups if he could get anywhere close to the top himself.

He didn’t know why Alexander was even in the U.S. Conciliate of South Africa anyway, but the man apparently liked business trips where it was debatable if anything secured existed in this country. Still, he knew to keep his mouth shut as they moved to be back of the building and took an elevator, old rickety thing, to the basement. It looked and smelled like a wet bomb shelter.

“Good things have reached my ears about you,” Alexander said as they walked. He didn’t say anything, keeping his cock sure attitude in his pockets for now. “You’re a quick-learner; you have the guts and the sharp mind to make tactical decisions; you have something to prove.” If that wasn’t a good ass pat from a boss, Brock didn’t know what was. “Have you ever trained a dog before?”

The question threw him a bit because he was certain Pierce had looked into him before taking him as a bodyguard on the boring ass tours. He had sat through them, made no complaint, made sure nothing happened but most of all, kept the head of SHIELD safe without drawing attention to himself. “No sir, no dogs in my house when I grew up.”

“A pity,” Alexander said conversationally as they walked, letting the silence reign right after.

The smell and sound of water grew thicker as they walked; he hadn’t actually realized there was this much to the whole Conciliate. He also didn’t know why there were armed guards waiting for them and a reinforced steel door down in here either. They passed through it without question, but he turned his head to eye the guards who were twitchy and seemed nervous.

“My neighbours had a dog when I was a kid, ugly big mutt who barked all the time.” Brock was making some of that up actually. It had been a small white little thing. He had made the dog have an accident when it had tried to bite him one too many times. “Can’t say I ever trained him.”

He stopped the same time that Alexander did, and he looked the man right in the eye. He found himself studying the man who was to heading right to the top of government for a long moment. He had no idea why they were here and he let that play on his face too.

“What are you afraid of, Agent Rumlow?”

“Nothing, sir.” The formality of his name made him stand up taller. Something very life changing was going on, and he had no idea why or how.

“Are you afraid of dying?”

“No.”

“Discipline?”

“Giving or receiving, sir?” He wasn’t interested in being afraid of anything. He didn’t like the limitations.

Alexander Pierce didn’t reply to him, simply looked him over again before nodding to something only a man who had seen so much would know. Somehow, he was given the impression that he had passed some kind of test. “I’m going to trust you with something, Agent Rumlow. However, don’t think for a moment that if you even think of betraying that trust that I won’t make certain you fear for consequences. Am I perfectly clear?”

Brock Rumlow couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down his frame in anticipation. He nodded his head, still managing to keep his cool, but he smirked a bit to show the man in front of him that he still wasn’t afraid.

“This way.”

He followed without question, stepping into the room that had a rather heavy door for being this far down in the ground. There was an acrid smell to the air like someone had dumped a bunch of antifreeze on the floor. The smell made his eyes water a bit as the sweet smell coated the back of his throat, but he knew better than to complain as his eyes flicked around the room. Pierce didn’t seem bothered at all.

To the left was a large metal tube, the hatches open and slush still melting on the floor. There were enough wires and some kind of mask hanging inside for him to know someone had been in there. To the right, close to Pierce was a large chair with a strange sort of large black metal halo circling the top and more slush around the chair base. In the chair lay a half naked man, pale, wet, barely breathing but with some kind of monitoring system that issued soft beeps from the screen nearby.

Brock approached to get a better look, only realizing in getting close how well-build the man was and how impossible it seemed that anyone was alive down here. His eyes settled on the light flickering off the limp metal arm on the man, the scarring where metal and flesh met something like a sick work of art. He watched the sleeping man’s chest rise and then fall slowly and he found himself staring to make sure another breath was going to follow at all. He then twitched from revulsion when Alexander simply reached out and ran a fond hand through the wet dark hair, smoothing it back as one might do with a favoured sleeping child… or a dog.

“Is he?”

“Not ‘he’, Agent Rumlow,” Alexander said immediately, looking over at him. “This may look like a ‘he’, but it’s not. You may refer to this as a ‘he’ or ‘him’ in future and catch me doing the same, but this is not the case. You might even come to appreciate the difference.” The guy always had a smooth way of saying things, piquing his interest and making him wonder. “This is the greatest asset of HYDRA, and also its best kept secret. It will stay that way too.” There was iron in the older man’s voice that made him realize that this was bigger than just being afraid, bigger than being chosen. “This is the Winter Soldier, a codename given by the Soviets in 1955.”

He frowned deeply and a bit skeptical, since the sleeping bedraggled mess in the chair looked no older then twenty-five. There was no opportunity to scoff at the notion because Pierced started to talk again. “He is a weapon, trained and conditioned to respond to orders and carry them out. The Soviets and HYDRA worked together on him with input from the Germans and the United States divisions. The Soviets kept him hidden because their intelligence agency knew how to keep the best secrets, but they let him go on loan when necessary.

“In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Winter Soldier project was shifted to a safe location in the United States. He’s been under my personal care since that time.” Pierced stopped speaking, letting the weight and implications sink in as the man in the chair shifted slightly, metal fingers curling and then spreading. “The asset is the finest creation Doctor Zola ever made, but like all weapons, he needs constant upkeep and care.”

Brock was starting to not have the best feeling about why he was here, and he rolled through his mind anything in his past that might make him a danger, to make him a target. No, he knew how to fit in regardless of how much didn’t care about anyone. He enjoyed pain, giving and receiving it, but he kept that entire aspect of himself well hidden. SHIELD didn’t tolerate that sort of behaviour and HYDRA might encourage it to a degree, but it wasn’t enough to make him feel like this meeting was going to go his way suddenly. It was the first doubt that came to him, but he squished it as soon as he became aware of it.

He turned his gaze back to the wet lump of man laying in the chair. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Granted.”

“How do you keep a weapon like this alive for that many years? How do you even know he’s yours?” He had a fondness for weapons after all; he had never seen someone sound so confident that a man could be one. The mind rebelled unless this was some kind of robot.

“Cryostasis,” Pierce said without hesitation, gesturing to the tube on the other side of the room. “We freeze him to subzero temperatures to preserve his vitality, but he is also unique in that he’s the only living creation to survive the process. That makes him very valuable.” Yeah, no shit… freezing and unfreezing a guy would be useful. “As for your other question, he’s mine because I know how to handle this asset.”

He watched in a horrified sort of fascination as Alexander leaned down, running hands through that matt of dark hair with a fondness that disgusted him. He curled a lip in revulsion as he watched the older man lean down, thinking Pierce was going to kiss the guy but instead, Pierce’s face disappeared to the side of the soldier’s head. He suspected that the man said something because suddenly the unconscious man’s eyes were open, unfocused but open. Another soft set of words Brock didn’t catch, and he didn’t have time to think too hard on it.

Regardless of the intravenous set pumping warming fluids into those veins, regardless of the fact that a moment ago, the guy looked on the verge of death, the Winter Soldier was out of the chair and in front of him with two steps that happened so quickly he didn’t even have time to do more than inhale. He froze as he felt the press of his own combat knife against his throat, the bite of the blade causing blood to well and slip down his throat. This was the point where he suspected people felt fear, especially staring into those unfocused cold eyes. He only felt a twisted fascination.

“Withdraw,” Pierce called softly, and the man who was not a man but a weapon withdrew, leaving his knife to clatter on the floor from limp fingers. There was a gesture from the older man, some kind of hand signal and the Winter Soldier slipped back into the chair but this time stayed apparently awake. “Are you afraid, Agent Rumlow?”

“No, sir. He’s…” Brock struggled to find words to encircle all that he felt in that moment. “The asset is the weapon I’ve been waiting for, I think.”

The older man gave a smile and a nod like the answer was pleasing, and he knew then that this was not just a twist of fate. This was something wonderful and it was hard for him to feel elation like that, feeling it well up inside of him, the illusion of a hard-on making him shake his head slightly. He had a fondness for weapons, always had, but that creature with the face of man was the best damn weapon he had ever seen.

“You are going to be trained on how to handle him,” Pierce said simply. “A weapon of this caliber can do serious damage, so proper time and investment is needed. And this is a one-way ticket as well.”

Brock just nodded his head, lifting a hand to touch the wound on his throat, feeling the warmth of blood there. This was a weapon he wanted to learn to handle well. This was a weapon he would learn to master.

“Your training begins tomorrow,” Pierce said, patting a hand on that flesh shoulder. He felt a bit of understanding on why the old man was so fond of this weapon. It was like a favourite gun or knife, some sentimental bullshit that rung clear and true without a proper explanation. “Once he’s fully awake, he’ll either accept you, or he’ll kill you.”

Brock Rumlow snapped awake and regretted it a second later as the agony of his burnt and broken body assaulted him so harshly that he nearly gave voice to a cry. He breathed deep the warm oxygen from the mask that he wore, aware it was probably the only thing that would keep him awake. The drugs that were supposed to keep him comatose through the ordeal were not working, and his chapped lips felt as horrible as the dryness in his mouth and throat. Sensitive tissues burnt or ruined from the dirt and debris, though… it felt like they were sloughing and new even more sensitive flesh lay beneath.

He still managed to swallow hard, turning his head a slight bit to regard the intravenous bag nearby and noted that it wasn’t running as well as it probably should. The bag itself was over half full, the monitors near it flickering lights and numbers that would have made sense if some nurse had bothered to lubricate his eyes as they were supposed to. Something was wrong and it wasn’t just the fact that he was burnt to over ninety percent of his body and felt like the other ten percent had already sloughed off from being bedridden.

His eyes took in the room as much as he could, picking out nothing but clean walls, equipment, no sympathetic bullshit from people who didn’t actually care, and not even a nurse in sight. His private suite would have been comfortable if he could have moved in it, but as it was, moving was not really an option at all for him. If they had given him skin grafts, he didn’t think they would have taken because there wasn’t enough healthy skin to take from. He’d scar, but he didn’t care. Scars would change his appearance, and he apparently needed that right now.

Yet, the question of why he was suddenly awake and in pain hadn’t been answered. His fingers searched for the button that patients like him were given to summon a nurse, except he just hoped it allowed him to dope himself up with more morphine. He found the control, but his fingers hurt too much to push it until about the ninth fumbling try and a stiff grunt of pain. He was used to pain, but this already wore on him.

He waited, hoping the nurse was at least pretty. The woman that slipped into the room was that, but she clearly wasn’t a nurse. He wanted to narrow his eyes at the red head, but she walked to the chair and seated herself without passing him more than a glance. The man who entered next was someone he actually expected to see, though he would have preferred it to more be on his terms.

“Still alive, huh?” He decided to at least have the first words, but his throat hurt and his voice was raspy from disuse and smoke. “What do I owe the pleasure? I suspect you’re not supposed to be here.”

Steve Rogers was not particularly a man to be denied, but the self-righteous prick was here and there was no way that he was getting up to shake his hand. From the little he remembered, Project Insight had not gone off as planned, and he had worked with Rogers two years to know he could place the blame on the man. The fact that they measured each other up didn’t surprise him either, though he was at a distinct disadvantage.

After a measure of silence, the great Captain America deigned to speak with him. “Alexander Pierce is dead,” he said simply and without emotion. He supposed it was intended to jar him, but it didn’t. “HYDRA is scattered and broken. You apparently didn’t have enough time to choke on cyanide, so you’re the one we know has information.”

He might have laughed if he thought it wouldn’t make him black out. “You think I’m going to tell you anything?”

“I’m hoping you’ll be agreeable if I can get you amnesty,” the soldier said. There was something in the man’s voice that made Brock smell heart-string jerking weakness from the man. “Tell me about the Winter Soldier. Did you know about him?”

Brock forced his chapped lips to part, not caring that they cracked and dribbled blood down his chin and into his bandages. “The weapon,” he drawled softly. “I knew about him, but Pierce gave him orders, set the missions, woke him up or put him to sleep.” That much was true, but he wasn’t about to squeal the entire truth right now either. It wasn’t worth his while.

Somehow, Steve remained emotionless about the few details. He was a bit impressed; he knew the history lessons after all. He’d looked it up. “What else do you know?”

“Not much,” he said carefully. “He’s an asset, a weapon with the face of a man, conditioned to do as ordered so I’m told.” He could see the strain in the man and damn, why weren’t his eyes lubricated to really enjoy this? “Is the Winter Soldier dead?”

“No,” Steve said a bit harshly, the denial both a refusal to believe and a refusal to let fear take root. “Bucky is out there, but he’s elusive.”

“Bucky?,” he just had to ask, watching the verbal knife go in.

“It’s his name, Rumlow,” Steve replied with the same steel the man was known for.

“Oh, does the guy you’re chasing know that?” He watched, waited and savoured the pain that flitted across what he could make out of Rogers’ face. Of course, if the Winter Soldier knew his old name, that just made things a bit more interesting in the long run. “Look, he’s a ghost story. He knows how to hide I imagine, the whole ‘disappearing in plain sight’ thing I heard when we took you in the streets. Even if you catch up with him, you probably can’t make him stay.” He tried to sound logical, like he was just solving another problem for a mission. Damn his throat hurt from talking. “Unless you find someone who can call him to heel.”

The soldier flinched at the phrasing but still came around the bed closer to him, to look down into his face. The man’s jaw worked, but the tension was so obvious that he wanted to have a chuckle. It would hurt his lungs, so he refrained, waiting for Rogers to ask him the question. He wasn’t going to answer without one, and he shifted his head and issued a soft groan of pain just for show.

“Steve,” Natasha said softly.

“What do you mean by that? _Call him to heel?_ ” There was a strain in the man’s voice. The only reason that this man was holding it together was for hope of an answer, hope to get to the Winter Soldier before HYDRA did.

“You need a handler,” Brock said slowly. “So Pierce said.”

“Who are they and where do I find one,” Steve asked neutrally. It was so carefully neutral that he knew it was a ruse.

“HYDRA trained a select few people how to take the Soldier’s leash and tug him along as far as I’m told. I don’t have names. I just know they existed.” He shifted slightly on the bed.

“ _Leash?_ ” This from Natasha, clearly aware that Steve was grappling with the idea.

Brock issued a cough which sent stabbing pain through his body, and he thought for a moment he might actually black out. Still, he had to smile through blooded lips. “You think HYDRA would let that thing run wild normally? No, they apparently designed him to follow commands or so Pierce mentioned.” His eyes flicked to Captain America’s face. “Like a well-trained dog.”

It was pleasant through his haze of pain to see the blond man’s lips form a thin line and anger radiate in waves. It almost made having this conversation worthwhile, but he was done playing. He had information of his own, minimal at best. The Winter Soldier was still out there, no doubt either hiding or snapping at anything that came too close. Pierce had mentioned the weapon going AWOL a few times, but the reasons and the results tended to be different. Sometimes the asset was passive and other times a destructive force to be tamed.

“Where does he go to ground?” It was a pointless question, but he knew Steve was grasping at straws. What a hopeful idiot.

“I don’t know,” Brock said.

“You’re a liar, Rumlow,” Steve said with a curl of lip. “Where does the Winter Soldier go to ground? Which HYDRA safe house would he go to?”

“Don’t know,” he insisted calmly. “Find a handler, Rogers. Don’t find one and you’re shit out of luck.”

He and Captain America stared at each other for a long time. Well, he stared at the fuzzy image of Rogers in front of him, and he assumed that the old man was looking at him. He shifted and groaned in pain, hissing through clenched teeth. As he expected, his intravenous was turned up again and the curl of drugs in his veins let him relax as much as being as damaged as he was could. It was wonderful to play a good part in these little conversations.

He didn’t even hear the pair leave. He did however realize that with Pierce dead that he topped the handler hierarchy, which was an interesting place to be. Now, if he was the malfunctioning Winter Soldier, where would he go?

Probably to bite the hand that fed him, take off those fingers before the muzzle closed around his fangs. How many handlers were left? That was the important question. And how many did the Winter Soldier have in that empty head to snap at? 

***

Steve wasn’t even certain that he had gotten any viable information out of Rumlow or if the man was just jerking his chain. He walked down the steps of the hospital without letting Natasha keep up, aware that she wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. She had come because they had both worked with Rumlow and she was very good at reading people. He couldn’t face her impressions of how that conversation had gone either, and the whole idea that he was off in search of a HYDRA agent that had the ability to _command_ Bucky made his skin crawl.

“Rogers,” Natasha finally called when he was near the car.

He stopped and turned to face her, stuffing his hands into his pockets and forcing himself to take a deep breath, to calm his nerves. It had been a bad few weeks, and it certainly wasn’t looking to get any better. Still, he knew that she had other matters to attend to that didn’t involve playing his second in an interrogation, not that what had happened in the hospital room had been anything but. He took another deep breath anyway.

“Steve,” Natasha said again, more gently this time. “Thoughts?”

“He was lying,” Steve replied with a shrug of his shoulders. He knew better than to believe someone like Rumlow, but he had to try as well. The man was one of the few HYDRA agents who had been high enough to probably know some information. Everyone else mumbled about ghost stories. STRIKE members were either dead or missing and presumed dead. “I knew he would lie.”

“He wasn’t entirely lying.” Natasha came to lean on the car side and crossed her arms over her chest. “He mentioned handlers, and it makes sense.” She ignored Steve’s irritated glaring at the world around them. “That file I gave you said nothing about them?”

Steve had the good sense to look uncomfortable. “Once there was a notation that the scientists believed that training qualified people to retrieve him when he malfunctioned. It was just a quick blurb before they went back into…” he paused to swallow hard, “before the conditioning and training notes.”

He looked at Natasha, wondering how much more she picked up out of Rumlow that he had missed, how much of his anger had blinded him to the little details. That was why he had asked Natasha to come, had drawn her out of hiding because he and Sam had searched too long based only on hints and whispers.

“I think you’re right about him though. Brock knew more than he was letting on, but I think he gave up good information about handlers,” she said slowly and carefully. “I think that’s your lead and even if you find out, don’t employ him or her unless you trust them, which we both know you shouldn’t. Best you find one of these handlers and get them to tell you where to find your friend or how to track him.”

He nodded. It was a good lead, even if he wanted more answers. He would never employ a handler against Bucky and not just because of their friendship. If the word ‘handler’ meant what he thought it meant, a handler was going to be dangerous around Bucky and could even possibly give him a command to attack him again. He doubted they just managed the situation; they no doubt knew how to control it. The notes might have been specific on some aspect of Bucky’s conditioning, but there were still things that translation did little for. He didn’t know enough Russian to be certain of some things, and it was still painful to read about how his best friend had been stripped to the studs and then built up into something that he still had trouble grappling with.

“Why would he talk about them though? If they are so important, if Bucky is so important, why even give up that information?” He knew that Rumlow was a good soldier but also a snake, ready to bite at any moment. The man was skilled enough to make any bite hurt too.

“Probably because he realized he’d have to give something up to keep you from probing for more,” Natasha said with a shrug. “Or he wanted to push your buttons.”

“I’ll believe the latter before the former,” Steve replied with a shake of his head and a sigh. “A handler,” he added just to taste the words.

“I know this is hard.”

Steve glanced at her and felt like he had a smile a bit. “It is, but you were on the other side of the fence than I am. You were on… Bucky’s side of it.”

Natasha had a way of smiling but not letting it indicate one thing or another. She was doing that now and he almost felt bad for the comment. He didn’t know much about her because of some vain need for her privacy, which was unnecessary since it was all in the internet right now anyway.

“If you…” he trailed off and finally just turned to look at her. “If you were Bucky, if you didn’t have it all but some things, what would you do? Where would you go?”

Her smile was a little warmer this time. “I’d find my weakness and destroy it.”

Steve sobered and nodded. “He’ll go for the handlers if he can remember them.”

“He’ll remember.”

“You sound certain, Nat.”

“If you had spent your life being controlled and had to work intimately with people who knew your buttons, you might not remember everything about them, but you’d know them.” She looked right at him and tapped her temple and then her heart. “The mind might not be entirely functional, but the flesh remembers, Steve. HYDRA was not gentle with him, so his flesh will remember and he’s keen enough and dangerous enough to know his own body. Don’t think he won’t use every advantage that he has right now.”

He nodded slowly, drinking in the information and sorting it passed all the emotion that he felt when it came to his best friend. He had to be level headed if he was to use any of this information appropriately. He wasn’t about to go to what remained of SHIELD with it, not when there was so much data mining happening right now anyway. Everyone left seemed to take personal affront that HYDRA had been among them. He also couldn’t trust that there weren’t sleepers, which bothered him immensely; he didn’t like not trusting people who he worked with.

Slowly, he sighed heavily and leaned against the car. “I’m going to have to call Tony, aren’t I?”

“You’re going to have to call Tony.”

“You know for a fact that’s going to be a painful call,” Steve said but his smile was warm when he looked at her next to him.

“I thought the lever pulling incident bonded you two like war buddies.”

“That’s… really not encouraging me to call him.” He issued a soft chuckle before glancing at her again. “How much information do I trust him with, do you think?” She had worked with Stark after all.

“He’s going to be nosy regardless and figure things out no matter what you tell him. Remember, most of HYDRA’s secrets are on the internet along with SHIELDs. If he hasn’t been forefront on the data mining, I’d say that he’s probably dying of fever,” she said as she pushed off of the car.

He did the same, fishing in his pocket for the keys. He had to call Tony, but he wasn’t looking forward to that and thought it might be best to process the information that he had gained and read what he could from the file that Natasha had given him. Maybe he missed some information about the handlers and their system, even maybe missed something like a name. He’d settle things in himself before he decided to take on Tony Stark even in a phone conversation, and he knew he’d run it by Sam first. The guy had a way of being logical and bringing his thinking down beyond just the considerable emotional attachments he had for Bucky.

“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to wherever you want to go.”

“Are those the kind of pick up lines you brought forward from the forties, Rogers?” Natasha smirked at him, and he could just shake his head to her teasing.

***

The low moan of fear didn’t particularly pique his interest, nor the blood drying on the man’s chin. He simply stared from his crouched position, his expression impassive as he purposefully allowed his gaze to roll over the dark-haired man’s struggling form. He would have thought that this wasn’t personal – none of his missions were – but it was this time. It was utterly personal, but he didn’t let that show either.

The man collapsed in front of him twisted bound hands around, the fingers not broken moving lamely in an attempt to create some sign, but it was pathetic and looked more like worms flailing in the air. The scent of blood filled the air and it became more potent with the sudden head shaking, a new wash of blood from between the man’s lips coating that stubbly chin with new fresh red.

The Winter Soldier continued to stare, feeling as empty now as he had when he was on any mission. He had thought that he might feel something, but the cold emptiness remained. He took no pleasure in this duty regardless of the fact that it was both necessary and supposed to be sweet to him. After all, how often had this man ruined his day? It was supposed to be joyous to return the favour, wasn’t it? It didn’t, which was a bit of a disappointment.

It didn’t detract from the man’s obvious pain and fear.

 _“You’ll bleed out soon enough,”_ he said softly, reverting to Russian out of habit. He hadn’t bothered to cauterize the tongue stub he had left behind after all. It was fatal, but he would stay to the end.

There was the sound of wet flesh hitting wet flesh, but the attempt to talk was pointless. There would be no words for him, no commands or key words whispered to bend him. He had taken care of that as soon as he had opportunity, and those swelling fingers couldn’t move enough to signal him to do anything that he didn’t choose to do.

It was interesting really, this free choice. He leaned his chin on the heel of his hand, not bothering to think too hard on the idea that he had free choice because it was an illusion. What he was doing was self-preservation, nothing more. How many handlers were left he didn’t know, but he would find them and he’d cut their tongues out and break their fingers and arms all the same. He would not be commanded to bend to a knee again; he expected if he destroyed more of them that he might eventually feel something towards it.

His blue eyes flicked at the sound of the man’s head hitting the wall with soft thumps of noise, but it wouldn’t attract anyone.

 _”Bleed and be content I haven’t decided on something worse for you. No cold water baths, no batteries, just knives.”_ He had no reason to comfort this dying man, watching his blood spill out from a ruined mouth, but he still took no pleasure in it. Not everything this man had done came to his memories, but he had flashes and they were enough.

The soft gurgling noise didn’t motivate him to quicken the situation. He watched as blood flowed, the man struggled in restraints and even tried to spit curses at him. He was far enough away that not even the attempts at spittle reached him, but energy flagged, fear returned and then even that melted away in the hour before the handler went still and cold.

Once the man was dead, he dragged the body over to the stove, stuffed the top half inside the open door and then turned on the gas, allowing it to fill up the room as he walked to the window. He flicked a simple match and threw it expertly inside to its target. It lit the gas before ever reaching the stove, and he was gone into the night before it could be seen as anything more than a suicide.

HYDRA was losing more heads than could be replaced at this rate.


	2. A Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have pseudo-lied about the sections. This one has four, so apologies for that. The rest should just have three. No promises anymore though.
> 
> Also, this chapter has some violence, though nothing graphic enough for the big scary label.

***

There had been ten of them lined up like soldiers ready for inspection, all uniformed up to the nines except that they carried minimal weapons. A knife, probably a pistol at most adorned each of them, but they didn’t cross the line that they had been set in either. It was the same cold dank basement of the Conciliate building, though the armed guards seemed less agitated today.

Brock had eyed the other men and single woman with a passing interest, not certain how this was going to constitute any manner of training. If he had to fight all these people to the death for the right to pat the Winter Soldier on the head, he was probably going to have to resign. This just wasn’t fair odds after all, and he didn’t give these people much of a chance to beat him even if they brought out knives and pistols against each other.

They were left wondering when this would begin, given that Pierce was a man who was strictly on time for everything. The man’s meetings had back-up times so he could get there, say a few words, rub a couple of elbows, smile in that endearing way that was both steel and warmth somehow. He knew something was up when the big boss was not here on time, but he didn’t shuffle or linger or even show more than boredom as he stared at the water dripping from a pipe near the ceiling.

He judged they had been forced to wait for at least thirty minutes, enough time to make most people grow concerned or frustrated. He suspected this was their first test, but he had oodles of patience and besides, he was on paid time, so if they wanted him standing around picking his ass, he would do just that.

They all turned their heads when Alexander Pierce entered into the room, the fabled Winter Soldier moving at the man’s elbow. There were two men striding in behind the pair, but it was clear that they were medical staff. He personally wondered what they were worried about, since the Winter Soldier seemed to be moving well for a frozen guy, graceful and deadly even, like that flash that he had seen yesterday.

Alexander still smiled at them all. “Thank you for coming,” he started with, which should have been hilarious since they were required to be here. “The ten of you have been chosen for a very select duty, one of great importance. Each one of you has seen HYDRA’s greatest asset, and I urge you to consider the special privilege that is.”

Brock was starting to wonder what this was about. He knew that this was a one-way ticket, knew that there was no turning back once chosen. So why the speeches? Why be late at all? Were they actually all going to fight each other or worse, were they going to fight that blue-eyed monster standing at Pierce’s elbow?

“Lady and gentlemen, step away from each other enough that if you raise your arms, only your finger tips will touch,” Alexander said and gestured with a hand for them to perform this apparent necessary duty. With a shuffle and a few glances at each other, they did as they were told and the medical staff moved away to the only small table in the room. “Excellent, now your job is simple. Stand still. Each of you will have a few minutes with the Winter Soldier. Don’t step out of line. As a personal aside, I would advise against touching him.”

Brock was at the very end of the line, and he turned his head and leaned forward enough to catch Alexander looking back at the Winter Soldier and saying something softly. He was too far away to hear the words, but the first ‘candidate’ stiffened up, so that was indication enough of what was going to happen. Still, he had heard the rules, so he stayed where he was. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to watch the same as everyone else.

The Winter Soldier slid away from Pierce with even measured steps, and he noted first off that the asset actually made no sound, or maybe they were all breathing too loudly. The Soldier stepped in front of the first candidate, giving a profile view and watching the man with a benign sort of interest. It was some kind of staring match, but the Winter Soldier didn’t move a muscle, not even to blink, for a few minutes.

He didn’t know what sort of switch was flicked but the deadly weapon moved on to repeat the gesture with the next man. It was too far away to see what was passing between them, but just as quickly as a snake striking, the metal hand reached out and crushed the second man’s throat. There was a faint inhale of pain and then a body hit the ground, legs thrashing for a few seconds before going still.

If that wasn’t enough, the next in line seemed to lose a bit a nerve and took a step back. Maybe it was to avoid the body stiffening, but the reaction time of the Winter Soldier was such that Brock leaned back to watch that metal hand close on the man’s skull and cave it in as horrible screams filled the room. The fact there was no hesitation, no mercy, no comfort, no reaction just made the action seem robotic, but from down the line, his eye caught on that of the Soldier and he knew a predator lurked there. A creature like that had no mercy on weakness.

The body hit the floor and the Winter Soldier just moved on. The next one shifted in his places but held his ground and was spared any sort of manhandling. The woman was next, and if she did more than bare her teeth in a snarl of threat, it didn’t seem to have any effect on the deadly weapon moving down the line. She apparently measured up as she kept her pretty face on.

After the only woman, the next man was apparently acceptable before the next one was killed with a single punch that caved a chest in and filled the room briefly with a wet sound of air being sucked through some wet orifice. The big brute of a man that topped them all in height also met the Winter Soldier’s stare with a mean look that Brock almost laughed at. It was stupid; the Soldier wasn’t intimidated by any of them. Something of that caliber could kill them all with such ease they didn’t even have time to piss themselves.

He glanced down to the line to Pierce who only stood with hands in his expensive suit pockets and watched the goings on like someone who was watching a chess match. If the man in charge felt anything for the deaths, it didn’t show even though the stink of blood, brains and now rising scent urine and feces as bodies cooled around them. Alexander watched the Winter Soldier and the men in the line equally like he didn’t care who bested who.

Brock was brought back to attention when the side of his face was suddenly splattered with blood and brains as the Winter Soldier’s hand closed on the head of the man next to him. There was a tight scream of agony before the body was just shoved away, except a shove from that power house threw it into the wall a few feet back. He heard legs kicking a moment as the body tried to catch up with the fact the head was ruined, but his attention by then fixed on the deadly weapon that took two steps to be in front of him. He could hear blood and bits of brain matter dripping on the floor, felt it slide down the side of his face.

Their gazes met, and Brock felt like he was staring right to the back of the man’s empty skull. He swore he could see the back of that mop of hair, and then a second later, the Winter Soldier was there, calm, deadly, appraising him as a fox appraises a small family of sweet bunnies, picking out the choice hare of the lot. There was a cold cunning in those eyes, yet no parade of emotions or thoughts that would indicate some kind of decision. Just a predator.

He slowly smirked, lifted his chin slightly, showing this weapon that he wasn’t afraid of it. He recognized what it could do, but he knew that he had nothing to stand against that power but to slide the safety back on the gun or the knife safely in its sheathe. Cock-sure, he let the Winter Soldier see him in complete control and acceptance of his body and limitations.

“Maybe someday when this line-up bullshit is done, you can show me how to crush a skull like that,” he said, flashing a smart grin regardless of the blood and brains slipping down his face. Pierce had never said they weren’t allowed to talk to the asset, and he wasn’t afraid either. Impressed but not afraid. This was a weapon he was going to master or die for it right here and now.

Something passed out of the man in front of him, and the Winter Soldier turned away from him. A few words in some language – he thought Russian – came from Pierce and the soldier walked down the line of alive and dead without so much as glancing at those still present in the living.

And that was it. They were dismissed, the medical team moving among the dead to pointlessly make certain they were stiffening up like only dead people could. Two days later, he and Alexander Pierce flew back to the United States like nothing had happened.

His first day back working at SHIELD he received an order like nothing he had had before, and he would have liked to take it as a joke but knew better.

_Adopt a dog from a local shelter._

***

“Rogers, you should be able to tell that I don’t dislike you based on the fact that I personally picked up my own phone.” Tony’s voice really did little to update his confidence on the whole idea of trusting the man with anything relevantly important and sensitive. However, Natasha was right in that Iron Man probably combed SHIELD and HYDRA secrets like it was a midnight matinee movie. The little about the Winter Soldier the guy would probably already know. “Oh and congratulations on the billions of dollars of destruction and killing the conservation efforts around the Potomac. God Bless America.”

Steve frowned and was suddenly glad he wasn’t having a face-to-face meeting. “It’s good to hear from you too, Tony,” he said, trying to force some manner of happiness into his voice. “Speaking of lots of dollars, is it true you blew up all your Iron Man suits?”

There was a bit of an awkward pause on the other end of the line. “It was fireworks, and I’ve already built a new couple of suits, but your concern for my well-being brings a tear to my eye.”

“Really?”

“Sarcasm, Steven, sarcasm,” Tony said with every bit of the sharp sarcastic wit the billionaire was known for. “I doubt this is anything but a business call since it’s from you.”

Steve sighed heavily and shook his head, but he accepted it was true. He couldn’t actually imagine chit-chatting with Tony on the phone, and besides, he knew the guy was probably looking up everything about him as of late and locating him too. “Is this a secure line?”

“With SHIELD’s secrets polluting the beautiful internet, do you really need one?”

“Yes.” There must have been something in his tone that lanced the inflated ego threatening to balloon out is ear piece because there was no reply, but he distinctly heard the sound of fingers flying over computer keys. He waited, crossing one leg over the other as he tried to get comfortable on his couch and resisting the temptation to pace.

“We’re secure. You owe me for it too, by the way.” He could always count on Tony keeping some kind of petty tally on something.

He drew himself to the possibility that this might work, that three days of stewing over what he had been told was time wasted in not getting closer to Bucky. He had still needed to, and this was not something that he was going to regret either. He logically spaced out how he was going to say things while hiding some of the details if it was possible. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Tony, but he didn’t particularly want to draw the man into this mess when it was his to deal with.

“Uh, Steve, on the clock here?”

“Do you remember two years ago on the first helicarrier when you said you had stolen all of SHIELD and Fury’s dirty little secrets?” It seemed a bit of an abrupt introduction to the topic that he was heading towards.

“Oh yeah, that time before you had to pull my lever and prevent an engine from tearing me up… which, if I seem to remember correctly, you were too busy playing soldier at to even do that right. Did you know that paint is not that cheap?” He swore Tony was doing it to annoy him. It had to be a gift to push his buttons; how had Howard raised this kid? Though, he admitted the sly ego was still there in both men. “Anyway, yet another thing you owe me for, but what about those dirty little secrets?”

“Did you ever look at the information?”

Now there was an uncomfortable pause if he ever heard one, and Steve already had his answer. “After SHIELD got torn down, I did,” Tony finally admitted. “I compared notes with what I had back then with what was revealed.”

“And was it accurate?”

“Most of it, though I admit some of it was dated. The secrets are on the internet, Steve… you do know about that, right? You know, the fountain of information, pornography and…”

“Yes, I know about the internet,” Steve cut in coldly. The whole ‘age’ thing was well passed the expiration date by now.

“Okay… touchy subject.” If Tony expected to sound apologetic, the man failed completely.

“Project Winter Soldier,” Steve finally said slowly, like it pained him to do so. It did, but he needed to get to the bottom of this. “With HYDRA so deeply entrenched in SHIELD, I’m looking for a very particular subject on that project.”

Tony was silent for a time, perhaps either looking up some information or trying to decide how to respond. He didn’t get anything for a moment. “If you’re going to ask me about a target list, it’d be better if you don’t.”

“That’s not it. I need a different list of names for that project,” he murmured stoically. “A list of people known as ‘handlers’ for the project.”

“Handlers? Like that specific term?” Was that relief in Tony’s voice on the other end of the line?

“It… might be different in Russian,” he admitted softly. “I have a file with brief mentions, but I need to know more about it.”

“How bad is this need? Like ‘little kid grabbing for candy’ need or ‘you might die without it’ need?” He had a feeling this was going to come right back to him owing Tony something else, and he was not looking forward to playing into Iron Man’s hand.

He did anyway though. “I need it to tie up some loose ends.”

“I can look into it, but I don’t promise anything. First of all, the project is still somewhat a mystery and most of the files are hard copies and those around referring to it appear to be in Russian. It’s going to take me a few days to translate them to something sensible.” He was pretty certain that Tony didn’t actually know Russian, and it was something he would have thought Natasha would mention it.

“You have a good translator?”

“Yeah, I will once I learn the language. It shouldn’t take more than a few days.” If there wasn’t the whole ‘he owed’ bit in there, he would have appreciated the gesture more. “However, I’ll look up what I can about the project and the term of endearment.”

He kept his cool by reflecting that Tony was just looking for a way to annoy him. It was working, but it was also the way that Tony got more information. “I appreciate it.”

“If I get you this list, you have to drop in to get it.”

“Excuse me?” He was not flying out to Malibu to see Tony Stark. He knew some birthday party would be involved.

“I’ll send the jet to get you.”

“I don’t want to leave D.C. right now…” He was still hopefully some sign would come up about Bucky, even if that hope had faded weeks ago.

“All the more reason to leave there,” Tony replied with a strange sort of curtness. “Pepper was asking after you, said you after almost dying that you probably needed some R and R.”

Steve knew that he was better off outside of D.C, but he also knew that some members of SHIELD would see his leaving as some kind of abandonment. He had shown HYDRA in their ranks and had removed Project Insight, though he had no doubt that there was a back up for that algorithm but not the means to make use of it yet. Besides, signs pointed that Bucky was still in the area, and the city was big enough for a brainwashed, confused assassin to hide in. If there was even a chance…

“Rogers, you’re coming to my house,” Tony finally said dryly. “Your lost friend can handle himself a few days without you pining for him. And SHIELD can’t grow out of diapers in the time you’re gone either.”

He sighed heavily. “Fine, but not birthday parties.”

“Who do you take me for?”

“Tony.”

“Fine, no birthday parties.” There was a bit of relief in the pause. “But anniversaries and staff parties are okay, right?”

“Good-bye, Tony.”

“How much starch do you use on your underwear to keep it that stiff, Rogers?” He hung up before he could hear the rest of whatever set of questions were happening.

***

Brock knew that he wasn’t alone when he woke, but if he expected to see Rogers or Romanoff back to ask him more questions, he would have been disappointed. There was a nurse and a doctor standing in his room, but he knew from the look of them that they clearly weren’t medical staff for this hospital, which was run by the government and used for both political prisoners and SHIELD agents. So, HYDRA had finally decided he was worth looking up, did they? He actually had no doubt that they had been watching him to see if he would live and if not, they would have never appeared.

“Am I gonna make it, doc?” His voice had a bit more strength thanks to his mouth finishing off doing that horrid sloughing yesterday. The skin was still tender and sensitive, but it wasn’t just stabbing pain.

Still, his eyes were in better condition to size up the pair. The man was tall, balding but held himself like he’d been beaten recently, though he couldn’t tell if that was just his natural stature or not. The woman held herself up like if her back wasn’t ramrod straight that she wasn’t accomplishing her life’s goal. Her eyes were too keen for a person not in control, though he really was sorry about her face… she wasn’t a pretty woman but any stretch of the imagination.

“It seems like it will be the case. However, for proper treatment of your skin injuries and to limit too much scarring, we’re going to have to transfer you,” the doctor said with a sort of bored tone that meant to make the man sound more professional. He wondered if the guy was a doctor at all or just an agent sent in. “You will be transferred tonight given that your condition is stable.”

That seemed awful fast, but then again, HYDRA had no reason not to move quickly. They were probably all running around chasing their tails anyway, so he wondered which government was actually orchestrating this move. He also wondered why now after he had been healing up for a few weeks now beyond the entire idea that he might not live. He had obviously been shown to be resilient.

“When am I expected back to work, doc?” Was it that they had a mission for him?

“When you’re healed,” the man said, but this time glanced at the nurse who was writing something down on her clipboard. “For now, you’re expected only to rest.”

His eyes flicked to the woman as she turned the clipboard around, but it took his eyes a few moments to read the words because he was still tearing badly. The words should have sent a shiver down his spine, but he instead smiled passed chapped healing lips. So that was why he was being moved was it? It was a nice sentiment, but he knew that it was only because it was far more beneficial for HYDRA if he stayed alive right now. Dead men weren’t worth the cost of dumping them in a ditch.

“Moving independently?”

It was the nurse, a woman with shaggy blonde hair, nice legs but with a face that had seen better days who nodded. She was older and her accent was thick and almost impossible to understand when she decided to say anything, but she made it very clear that she was the one in control of the situation. “Two indisposed. Our list is deeply shortened, and we can’t risk losing hold of an asset like that.”

Brock had been thinking that being top of the hierarchy was only a good place to be as long as there were people below him. Were there people below him? Obviously someone knew of the list of those who were capable, but with HYDRA scattered as it was, there might not have been a way to know for certain who was alive or dead. Obviously, he and whatever was left had become a hot commodity.

“How many then?” He was more curious than anything.

“Two, yourself included,” the woman said with a tone that brushed off the question. “Agent Keller is in pursuit.”

Ah, so Janis was still in the land of the living then? She had been one of the few to make the assessment same as him, though he still thought that her baring her teeth at the Winter Soldier the worst joke ever. She had made the years mostly sticking to the CIA as far as he heard, but she hadn’t made the strongest impression according to Pierce way back when. If she was one of the few left, he didn’t think she’d succeed with that mission. He wondered how many pieces they were going to find her in actually.

“Our concern is not with Agent Keller. She knows the risks of her mission, but you have little time or opportunity to defend yourself should the worse come here,” the male doctor said, though his boring tone and voice annoyed Brock a bit. “You will be transferred to a secure clinic that had better suit your medical issues.” He was fairly certain that actual doctors didn’t call severe burns and healing damage ‘issues’.

“And when she fails?” He just had to ask.

The woman in charge narrowed her eyes at him. “It will be on you.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem.”

“As cocky as the reports have indicated,” she replied coldly.

“Nah, but I had the good fortune of making a strong impression,” Brock replied, letting the cocky confidence enter into his voice as much as he could with healing throat tissues.

The pair at the end of his bed exchanged a glance, but he was blinking too rapidly to catch what the look was about. He suspected he had made an impression on them, and he wasn’t even standing up, which really was too bad. He couldn’t say he enjoyed pissing lying down into a kidney dish, but if they were transferring him then life was already looking a bit more upwards. Now if Janis did manage to do what she said she could, he might even muster up something in him to be impressed. He’d still top their hierarchy of two anyway.

“This is the part of our conversation where you either give me an outline, or we negotiate the terms of my employment as a full-time handler, right?” Brock forced his sore lips to form a smirk. The best working weapon required a steady hand after all, and he was going to be the only one they had soon enough.

***

The team of twelve lay in broken bloody piles, bodies twisted, some limbs severed, brains spattering the floor and the walls. It had been a nice hotel room at one time, but now it appeared to be ruined with the smell of death and feces as bowels loosened. The carpets – he thought they were expensive – were stained beyond repair, and he easily ignored the sound of the fire alarm blaring in the hallway as well as the sirens down in the streets below. 

The thirteenth member was supposed to be team leader, but she struggled vainly against the inevitable. The others he had killed because they had come; he was killing her because of a past association and little else. People didn’t stand much of a chance in close quarter combat with him save a very select few, so he had to consider the wisdom of their attempt at ambush. It had failed miserably.

The woman, Janis he thought, snarled at him, but her pale shaking body gave away her true vulnerability. He’d shot her very precisely in the abdomen to prolong her sense of vitality so he could watch standing at the end of the bed as her dark blood seeped out and stained the sheets. Like the two before her, he had broken most of her fingers so she couldn’t sign at him. He had left her tongue intact, but her broken jaw clearly prevented her from doing much in the way of talking.

He reflected that she had barked a command at him, and he had actually paused between killing two of her team because of it, but she made the mistake of thinking that her commands would hold him long. He wasn’t the same obedient weapon that she had driven hard into missions, pushing him with barked orders and quick reprimands and even quicker blows.

Her other mistake was to come in within his reach when she thought he was passive; she had never read him very well. Her impatience in handling him had always been a flaw, treating him like a well-trained dog or even hamster sometimes. So she had come into range, secure in old rules, and then he had shot her and smashed his fist into her jaw, shattering it. No more commands to hold him in place. The slaughter had continued as she lay shocked and stunned on the floor.

Handlers were special, he finally decided. They had been trained to command, to leave a different sort of impression on him than other people. Most had no idea how to actually handle a weapon like him; long standing handlers were rare, and the ones that he vaguely remembered were dead. Alexander Pierce had been the most recent one, and the man had been perhaps the best as well, never requiring more than one or two physical prompts to usher the required reaction. Whispered words, confident reasoning, quiet commands were the way of that man. Yes, he had been struck by the man, but Alexander had valued the power rather than felt a need to prove to everyone else he knew it. It really was too bad the man was dead; he might have even felt something towards killing him slowly.

As it was, he passed a lazy look to Janis as she struggled in the sheet strips she was bound with. She had paled considerably, but her pure loathing dislike was very much alive in her brown eyes. Her fear was far more present this time, and he suspected because she knew she was going to die. She had had a few close calls with him in the past, but she had stayed alive because he deemed it not worth his time to end her life.

Now he had no such sense of indifference. She was the second to last on his list after all, and he figured he had already scratched her off of it. Her only job right now was to bleed out her life blood on the sheets and fade away. His blue eyes hardened at the soft whimper as she shifted, her dislike making an attempt to wound him where he stood at the end of the bed. He said nothing to her, not like the others. Perhaps he felt even less for her than them, or perhaps he realized that soon enough he would be free of a handler’s commands once she and Rumlow were dead.

The Winter Soldier tilted his head at the sound of heavy tread in the hallway, calls from men who were no doubt some kind of emergency response. He regarded her for a long moment before making a decision that her suffering was not worth having to shoot men who were only doing their jobs in looking for fire or the source of the commotion in this room. They would have enough to deal with in cleaning up the mess in the first place.

He lifted his pistol as the door came open, ignoring the first fireman to step into the room and utter a shout. He put a bullet cleanly into Janis’ head to guarantee that she wouldn’t have any way of making her presence known to him in anything other than a grave marker. He glanced at the firemen filling the doorway, his blue eyes taking them in before he slipped his pistol back into his belt.

Shouting for police aid wasn’t something that even registered to him as he turned and fled for the window, slipping out of it and climbing the walls to disappear into the night. Now there would be no mistaking his presence or his activities. HYDRA would know, so they would move against him.

With that in mind, he traveled the night to the hospital to search for his final target. He knew that, like Pierce, Brock Rumlow had the high potential to be dangerous to him, but he had wanted to savour that death more than the others. Impressions ran deep with some, though he didn’t understand the process or how one made a stronger impression than others, but they were important. The stronger impression, the deeper he was forced to react to commands by that individual, the longer he was held on a ‘stop’ or the more deadly when he was on a ‘go’. Cutting up Rumlow would be a pleasure he was certain, not the empty shadows that he had experienced with the other three.

It was not to be, and he felt a strange twist of disappointment when he realized that Rumlow had been moved, maybe taken out of the hospital. The room where he had spied the man initially was empty, everything made up nice and clean for the next patient. He crouched on the edge of the window sill and simply peered in as he pondered his next move and what he knew might be true.

First, Brock could be dead; he hadn’t checked in on the man in over a week and skin infections were probably common. Second, the man had been transferred to a different ward in the hospital, which meant he had to stay around to be certain and systematically search through the hospital. He needed a disguise for that. Third was that HYDRA had stepped in and squirreled the man away for use against him at a later date. While inconvenient, he could still find an opportunity to isolate Rumlow when the man was eventually sent out after him; by then, he should have shaken off more of his training and be in better position to skin the man slowly. 

Any which was he looked at it, the end result was still that Brock was dead or going to die. The idea didn’t fill the emptiness inside of him, didn’t particularly give him purpose, but it meant one less potential to be dragged back into HYDRA’s hands to face the tortures that would grind him down to nothing but a bared weapon. With no handlers, HYDRA had lost a key stone to recapturing him, though they could technically physically break him enough to drag whatever was left back to a HYDRA base, but he had so far avoided those kinds of confrontations.

For now, he would exercise patience and make certain that Rumlow wasn’t currently hidden in another part of the hospital. If the man was gone, there was another he had to cope with. A few months distance was probably for the best, but he knew that Captain America was still looking for him. He would have to face the man eventually, would have to face the memories that threatened to overwhelm him when they were close.


	3. An impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies in advance for the sheer size of this chapter, but it was tying stuff together for the future ones. This chapter, like the others, has not been beta-read, so excuse any mistakes found along the way.

***

It was some kind of mutt that he adopted, though they gave him three possible breed types the idiot could be. It was a medium sized dog, a black coat with a single white paw but the kind of liquid brown eyes that seemed to melt even the toughest of oppositions. Brock had got the dog for signs of intelligence rather than for any physical characteristics, since the dog already knew a few basic commands like sit, lay down and shake a paw.

The dog’s name was Scooter, and he didn’t like the idiot enough to bother to change it. Scooter wasn’t actually stupid, but Brock liked to think of the dog as ‘idiot’ for his own personal preference. He didn’t like working much with animals, but an order was an order.

He had Scooter for six months, and that black creature went with him almost everywhere. Because he knew this was a test set by Pierce, he dedicated making the dog a working creature, something that obeyed, knew tricks, and showed a very good ability to sniff out things that many people would have preferred hidden. They went to dog obedience classes more often than he went drinking, and his co-workers had a good chuckle over Scooter tagging along with most things he did aside from missions themselves.

The idiot also didn’t apparently have a mean bone in his body. Whenever he tried to get angry with the dog – and he did just to see what would happen – Scooter just rolled over to expose that black belly, wagged the damn tail and whined until he showed some sign of letting off. Then he was subjected to hours of the dog following him like a shadow begging forgiveness for whatever had created his ire, which generally was nothing at all. He learned not to bother hitting or raising his voice much, though his emotional indifference didn’t seem to bother Scooter at all. Apparently the dog could love them both so Brock didn’t even have to consider it.

After four months, Alexander Pierce told him to bring Scooter on security details as the man went on inspections of facilities and big detailed meetings. The dog showed no sign of doing anything that Brock didn’t ask him to do, but he had learned to reward to keep the dog in line, to ease some of the boredom of standing in one place for a long time. They were a team he supposed, but he relied less on Scooter than the dog relied on him. He accepted the companionship as easily as he shot a gun at a target or trained while the idiot ran circles barking in excitement at the dummy he was knifing at the time.

Two months later, Alexander Pierce had them stop at a shipping yard. It wasn’t a rare thing as HYDRA business wasn’t always done in restaurants or fancy hotels or meetings. There were some skuzzy areas that only such work could be completed, but he followed along just as well, the idiot at his heels like the well trained mutt he was.

“How do you enjoy pet ownership, Agent Rumlow?”

“He keeps my feet warm on cold nights, sir,” he replied sarcastically. “Otherwise, I think the women in the office like him more than anyone else. I can see how he could be a dating tool.”

“A pet is a great responsibility,” Alexander said as they walked casually down the docks. “It’s a burden to your schedule and your life, is it not?”

Brock simply shrugged and bent to pick up a stick, tossing it and letting Scooter rush off to go and get it. “The responsibility doesn’t bother me.” It got him out of a few awkward attempts at dinner dates actually.

“His failure is your failure, Agent Rumlow. His success is a reflection of his own skills and your commands. His training is in your hands. His life depends on you.” Alexander suddenly came to a stop and turned to look at him. “I haven’t seen you strike him. Why?”

“I tried, but he just rolls over and pisses on my shoes in appeasement,” he said with a shrug. “No point beating the shit out of him if he’s doing what I want, is there?”

There was a silence in which Brock dropped down and grasped the stick to throw it twice more for the black idiot who happily ran off for it. He tucked his thumbs into his belt and watched, issuing a sharp whistle when the dog was distracted by some aspect of the docks, and immediately, Scooter returned to him. He gestured and the dog sat before them, happy dog grin and liquid brown eyes peering at them, waiting for the next order.

“Shoot him.”

Brock hesitated for a single moment before he pulled his gun, flipped off the safety and put a single round between those liquid brown eyes that never stopped saying “I love you” until they turned glassy. Six months of his life wasted on that idiot, but he felt little for the death. Sure, it would free up a bunch of time, but the dog really was a pain to have around.

Alexander handed him a piece of folded piece of paper. “You will have a day to make an impression on the asset. The second day he will be your responsibility but expect little from him. You might even want to bring a book,” the older man said. “The third day will tell us how well you did compared to your peers.”

All this for a chance to be close to the asset, huh? He supposed it was worthwhile if things turned out the way he wanted them to. “Yes sir.”

“Agent Rumlow, the asset is far more deadly than your dog. If he turns on you, don’t expect any help. However, like your Scooter, direct and command him, and he will bring only his best to the playing field. Don’t be afraid to reprimand him.” Alexander Pierce watched him with the usual casual smile of a man playing his hand so well few knew that they were already beat. “Don’t call into work tomorrow. I’ll list you as bereavement leave for the dog you just lost hit by a car. Tragedy, isn’t it?”

Brock shrugged his shoulders, tucking away his pistol. “Two days with HYDRA’s finest weapon doesn’t sound like the worst kind of bereavement leave.”

“Hope for a good strong impression,” Alexander said before turning and walking away from him. He was left there standing on the docks with a piece of paper with an address and time, a cooling body of his dog, and a future that involved throwing a completely different kind of stick for the asset to bring him back. Maybe the Winter Soldier would sit at his heels too?

The next day, he arrived at a bank in the midst of heavy renovations, but he was waved in like he was just another part of the work crew. The place was apparently getting an upgrade to security, a new paint job and nicer desks for all those smiling clerks that took one’s money. He walked across the pristine white tiles passed the working crew and into the back of the bank where the safety deposit boxes were kept and down through the rather obvious hole knocked into the floor. Apparently they were going to have to fix that.

Beneath the bank was cool underground, but it was neither wet nor musty down here. It was clean, with as much security down in the narrow halls as there were security guards. This must have been some kind of HYDRA nest, a new one by the look of it since he knew of a few in the city. He traveled deep down, waved through as if people knew him, ignoring those that watched him go with equal parts envy and fear. He walked with a confident swagger, feeling no apprehension in this mission.

After months, this felt like the real deal for once. He was motioned to a side room, noting the huge reinforced steel door that looked like it had eight high security locks imbedded in it. He stepped inside and would have recognized this kind of room from the one he had been in while staying in South Africa. The same black chair resided in one corner and the cryostasis chamber lay in the other, though this one seemed far bigger and more permanent. The smell of antifreeze and slush filled his nose, but he ignored that to take in the three people in the room.

Two were medical staff, adding whatever clear medications that they apparently knew had to happen at certain times. Both were hunched over the asset who looked like a drowned cat, skin a pale ashen pallor that almost matched the grey metal of the prosthetic. The asset’s hair was wet, dripping recently melted cold onto bare shoulders, but the eyes were restless under the closed eyelids, moving back and forth almost constantly. He wondered how disorienting it was to go down that deep and come back having no idea about the passage of time.

“Ah, Agent Rumlow, we were told to expect you,” the thinner of the two medical men said. “We’re a little behind schedule. We had expected to have him bathed and dressed before you arrived, but as you can see, he’s only just starting to be lucid enough to be moved.” Behind schedule his ass, this was no doubt purposeful; no one was behind schedule on Alexander’s orders unless it was catastrophic failure.

However, Pierce seemed to indicate this was his first and only time to make an impression alone on the asset, and it wasn’t an opportunity that he would pass up. He walked deeper into the room, keeping his hands deep in his pockets as he came to stand next to the wet man’s flesh arm. “It’s better this way. I don’t particularly like people cleaning my weapons anyway, so it works out. I guarantee the job is done right.”

The two men looked at each other and set about their work without much more of a word. For his part, he stood patiently, not seeing the asset as a naked man laid out in a chair but a weapon he was going to clean and start to master. Like Scooter, he’d see what this creation could do so on day two, he would have a better grasp on how to get what he needed on this ‘impression’ faze. He was fairly certain that not having his skull crushed in on their second encounter was a good sign after all.

“He will be disoriented and off balance,” the taller man said softly as he injected something and followed it up with something very quickly. “He might be irritated and a little erratic and use repetitious behaviours.”

“Is that science talk for he might fall down and have the jitters?”

“He doesn’t know his own strength right now,” the tall balding man insisted, sounding irritated.

“And if he crushes my head in, you can put him back in this nice chair and wash him down there then because I won’t give a shit,” Brock replied coolly. “Just get him up to speed, and I’ll do the rest.”

He looked at the two medical staff muttering to each other in hushed voices, but it was all drug names and dosages, so he cared little. The asset was twitching more by now, and within ten minutes of vigil, the twitching turned into shivering violent enough that he wondered how often the guy fell right out of the chair. No one seemed concerned so he wasn’t either, instead reaching out to grasp either side of the asset’s head to steady it, digging his fingers into that matt of dark hair.

Blue eyes suddenly stared unseeing up at him, the same blank look he remembered well. The Winter Soldier wasn’t yet home and lurking around, but he kept his grip and looked into those empty eyes as the weapon in the chair continued to shiver and finally lips parted to let loose a soft groan, the sound gravelly and low as if the asset wasn’t used to making sound at all.

“He’s ready,” the smaller man uttered softly as he removed an intravenous catheter and applied pressure to where it had been. It was about ten seconds before the two men rose to their feet. “Showers are beyond there, and all supplies should be stocked. A set of clothing will be waiting here for your return.”

“I hope you don’t have to wipe his ass too,” Brock said with a shake of his head, startling the other two men. He dropped his hands and tugged on the asset’s flesh arm. “Up,” he ordered simply.

A hand was on his throat before he had time to recognize the danger to himself, and he found the Winter Soldier staring intently at him between bouts of fierce shivering. He frowned and drove two fingers between the asset’s ribs, certainly not able to hurt the weapon but to startle him a bit. “Enough of that,” he hissed, the weapon flinching and slowly withdrawing from the hold on him. “On your feet.” They stared at each other for a moment, sizing one another up before something passed out of the asset and the order was attempted.

Only ‘disoriented and off balance’ was not entirely accurate, but the asset rose regardless of how uncoordinated that it looked, nearly fell, corrected with those powerful legs and then tried to crumple to the floor. Brock got an arm around the poor bastard’s middle and hauled him up, not caring about his own clothing smelling like antifreeze in the process as he hauled that flesh arm across his shoulders to support the asset in the simple act of standing.

“Walk,” he ordered, keeping it simple because he wasn’t certain how much if anything the asset was processing. They hobbled slowly to the room that had been previously indicated as the showers as the two medical staff watched with benign interest. This was part of the test, was it? 

The shower stall was bigger than one person needed, but he could tell by the recently replaced tiles here and there that the asset tended to be agitated for these baths. There were three shower heads, a steel table with soap, shampoo and conditioner, basic toiletries and towels in one corner; he noticed there wasn’t a razor though.

By the time they had reached the showers, the weapon was standing a little stronger but still leaned against him, so he pressed the asset against a wall as he walked to the table to remove his clothing and gather a few of the necessary supplies for a proper shower, bringing them over. He flipped on a tap and felt the water with his wrist, wondering how hot to make it for a guy who had just been unfrozen. Whatever, the Winter Soldier probably didn’t even care, though those blue eyes shifted between have no idea what was going on and watching him.

“Come on, under the spray,” he said, gesturing to where he stood half under the water. The asset shifted, clearly wanting to move but seemed to recognize it was a risk. “Let’s go, waters not getting any hotter without you.” When there was merely another attempt to shuffle down against the wall closer to the spray, he stepped out to grasp the poor bastard by the arms and hauled him off the wall and supported the asset under the water’s spray.

They just stood there for a few minutes for him to assess the condition of his prize and to give the asset time to get over being disoriented. Soon enough he gestured at the wall. “Back to me, rest your hands on the tiles, spread your feet a bit,” he said, aware that the asset was probably as strong with the arms as with legs, but he had a job to do and the weapon wasn’t getting any cleaner. His order was easily complied with this time and he stepped away to get the soap and a hand cloth.

He had once or twice bathed Scooter, and he’d been through enough closed camps and military operations to be used to communal showers. The nudity of another man didn’t bother him, and he found a strange intimacy alone with someone that could take his head off with a misplaced elbow. He washed the asset from neck downwards, scrubbing away the last of the sweet tang of antifreeze and ironically removing what appeared to be some dirt.

Midway down the broad muscled back, the Winter Soldier began to sag, and one look at the asset’s face indicated that the light was on but no one home. He stabbed a finger hard into the left side of the man’s abdomen. “Pay attention,” he snapped coldly. There was a shift of muscles and the asset regained the previous position, watching him guardedly. “If you collapse, I’m dragging you out by your hair. Consider yourself warned.”

He continued to wash the other man, scrubbing away what he needed to and leaving the skin behind a rosy pink colour. He didn’t ignore the man’s ass or genitals any more than he would ignore the springs of his gun, and the asset seemed no more aware of the potential intimacy now as when they had started.

He slid to a crouch, feeling eyes on him and aware that he was being watched. He didn’t bother to turn his head as he wiped down the man’s legs. He gave a tap of the left ankle. “Lift your foot.” The motion was horribly exaggerated, almost kicking him in the face. He felt the stinging brush of heel on his cheek, and he hissed and gave a hard slap the back of the asset’s ass. “Easy. Just give it to me, don’t kick my head off,” the sting of his blow and words forced the weapon to lower the foot almost docilely to his hand. He scrubbed the bottom of the asset’s foot, between toes and around the arches before letting it go.

He watched as the foot returned to the tiles. He was a bit more careful when he tapped the right ankle, but it came up without needing the verbal order carefully and mindful. “Better,” he said as he repeated the gesture before letting that foot go as well.

Brock rose, watching the careful expanding of ribs with each breath before he dumped the cloth on the tile and stepped away to get the shampoo and conditioner bottles, setting one down. “Turn around and duck your head,” he said.

The act of turning over-balanced the poor bastard, and he had to catch the asset before the man could simply topple when correction was apparently not in order. He held the Winter Soldier for a moment longer than he probably should, but the weapon was wavering dangerously and the little colour the shower heat had risen in the man’s skin had disappeared. For a moment, he thought it might be alright, but a distinct green cast came to the man’s skin.

“Turn your head before you do that,” he barked, quickly side stepping as the great and unstoppable Winter Soldier vomited on the tiles. It was nothing specific, nothing even to write home about like some favoured last meal. It was greenish white foam and liquid, no doubt some after effect of the thawing process.

“I probably should have warned you,” the shorter man said, though the ghost of a smirk indicated that he hadn’t had any intention of telling Brock anything.

“Yeah, get out of here, you jackass before I stab the rest of the soap bar up your fat ass,” Brock barked harshly, even if his main concern was actually keeping the asset upright. The weapon was listing heavily to the left, clearly overburdened by dizziness and perhaps the weight of the prosthetic. “You can stop watching me too. He’ll be squeaky clean when I’m done.”

The two medical staff withdrew a little more discretely but didn’t leave completely. He held the asset up, pushing the listing man up against the tiles. He reached up and took the weapon’s head, tugging it so the mat of dark hair fell forward. He applied shampoo and began to wash it up, careful not to be as vigorous as he might have been before the episode of vomiting, expecting another could present itself at any moment. No, the asset just sagged and listed dangerously but somehow stayed upright enough for the process to be completed.

“Up off the wall. Rinse your hair out,” he ordered, this time not giving the weapon any other option as he hauled the Winter Soldier up against him and shoved that sagging head forward to mostly rest against his shoulder so he could keep a hand free to rub the soap suds from the long hair. The asset leaned heavily on him, an act that should have disgusted him but instead he found it strange how such a strong muscled frame could just… not be with it enough to even stand much right now.

Still, Brock felt the slide of a flesh hand not his own creeping around the small of his back. Normally he wouldn’t care, but he knew erratic behaviour could be rather violent. “You throw me, and I will give you a thrashing that you won’t forget,” he warned with a sharp shove of his knee against the asset’s, aware he could beat the living daylights out of this creature and probably still be the one to get his head knocked off. The arm still clamped around his middle, but it felt more like a need to hold onto something rather than the potential opposite reaction.

“Stand,” he finally ordered when the Winter Soldier had sagged against him to the point where the intimacy was enough to make him wonder if this was some desperate ploy to get attention or if the asset had literally gone to sleep on him. The movements were grudging, slow and clumsy, but the poor bastard stood again a little more firmly.

He reached for the conditioner and applied it liberally, not about to use it on himself given how short he kept his hair. He rubbed the other’s scalp, watching as that head bowed forward like a docile dog, but he kept things strictly methodical and cool between them. He didn’t even order this time but turned the asset’s head towards the water and rinsed out the chemicals.

That was the longest shower of his life, but it was done, the asset clean and apparently no longer about to puke on his feet anymore. He pushed the Winter Soldier up against the wall and left the man there while he cleaned himself up, showering quickly because he was here and he could watch the predator stirring in those watchful blue eyes, tracking his movements as he rubbed himself down with soap, shampooed his hair and rinsed. Their eyes were locked, studying each other intently before it seemed pointless to stay any longer.

Brock turned off the water, leaving them both dripping wet. He stepped away to grab two towels, wrapping one around his waist and approaching the deadly creature in front of him, gesturing with a hand for the asset to step away from the wall. It wasn’t an order that was followed aside from a shifting of weight, causing him to snap the end of the towel against the Winter Soldier’s thigh, leaving a red welt, but that metal hand closed on the towel instantly. He remained unfazed. “You want to dry yourself off? Go ahead.”

They stared at each other again before the fight left the other man’s eyes, and he approached, throwing the towel over the asset’s head and risking more vomit as he rubbed vigorously. Nothing happened, so he rubbed the weapon down as dry as he could and did the same for himself before he stepped back into his clothing. They still smelled a bit like antifreeze, but whatever.

“Come,” he ordered, snapping his fingers like he was summoning Scooter all over again. He was actually a little surprised when the Winter Soldier pushed off the wall and tottered after him as he led them back to the chair. “You know how to dress yourself, right?”

“He’s not fully functioning mentally.”

“He’s in there just fine,” Brock replied coldly. “He’s pretending to loaf around if what I saw was any indication.”

“The Winter Soldier doesn’t ‘loaf around.’” He hadn’t heard that kind of indignation in a long time, and he glanced over at the taller medical officer. Clearly someone had gotten hurt recently in those baths. “He’s a weapon.”

“Yeah well, this weapon can pull on his own pants,” he said with a smirk and gestured to the clothing. The asset regarded him with empty eyes for a moment before shifting and wandering over to the clothing to pick through it. Thankfully, the creature could dress himself. Actually with some stumbling and Brock having to grab the weapon’s shoulder, the Winter Soldier was successful in getting into pants, which was good enough to prove his point. “Good, now sit.” 

Brock turned to his peanut gallery. “A razor?”

“Shouldn’t you have shaved at home?” It was the shorter of the two, one perhaps a little less stung by his show.

“I keep the stubble, but he’s not going to. I’ll shave him.”

Both men paled as white as industrial grade toilet paper. “You’ll shave him? We don’t bring blades near his face or his neck.”

“If he’s as trained as well as I think he is, he’ll sit for it. I want a razor,” Brock said impatiently. He was really considering getting the soap and shoving it up that ass soon.

“He will kill you with it.”

“So let him if he’s that out of control,” he snarled. “My razor?”

There was a long moment of hesitation before the taller man left the room, no doubt to either get a damn razor or to report that he was about to bring a live blade scraping against the asset’s skin. Either way, he wasn’t about to let this moment go. He’d have the asset in good working order and that meant clean-shaven for the time being. It was a risk he was willing to take.

“You really aren’t afraid of him, are you?” The shorter man looked beyond him to the asset sitting bonelessly in the chair as ordered.

“Why would I be afraid?” Why should he even explain himself? “You don’t fear a knife you have sheathed and secured, and you don’t fear a gun you’ve already taken the bullet cartridge out of.”

“He’s not stable for at least four hours after he’s thawed. It takes him time to adjust; he’s just as deadly as when he’s primed. You bring a blade close to his face and he might just kill you.” It was supposed to be a warning he knew. He heard it as some supposed friendly advice.

“Well, just make sure you clean him up again when he’s torn my head off then,” Brock replied with a smirk before he reached out to lay a hand on top of the asset’s head. He was beginning to understand why Alexander Pierce touched the weapon now that he had spent some one-on-one; it was like tapping the butt of a favourite gun, stroking the hilt of a knife, caressing the ridges of a grenade. It assured him that not only was the weapon there, but it was his to use as he wanted. “I’m not afraid of the Winter Soldier; he’ll kill me too quickly for me to care about wasting time being scared. Besides, fear gives him power he’s not allowed to have. I control the situation; I control how he’s put to use.”

The smaller man frowned and took a few moments to contemplate all that he had said before glancing at the door and finally shrugging. “You might actually tame him. Don’t get attached.”

“You have no concern about that. I don’t get attached,” Brock replied as the taller man came back in. The man carried a razor even though the guy also looked like he had been chastened. “Good, we can finally progress.”

He walked back to the bathing area and picked up a clean cloth, wetting it down and rubbing soap onto it. Could the Winter Soldier get razor burn? He was about to find out apparently. He returned and rubbed the asset’s cheeks, jaw and neck down and then lathered up more soap before he picked up the razor and held it up for the Winter Soldier to see. “Stay unless I tell you to move.”

Blue eyes moved from his face to his lips and then over to the razor. There was a moment where he knew the predator realized the opportunity of a weapon, of a blade that really couldn’t do much damage but was a weapon nonetheless. Their gazes met for a moment before he set his knuckles to the asset’s bare chest. “Stay still,” he said firmly.

Then he took his first big risk as he turned the asset’s face to the right and set to work shaving the Winter Soldier. It was awkward, far too used to shaving himself rather than another person, but the asset complied with letting him do as he pleased as the device removed facial hair. There was an obvious tightening of those muscles when the razor dipped down to scrape over sensitive neck tissues, but he was careful as he worked. It was perhaps because the asset literally didn’t move a muscle that he accomplished the task with little more than excess soap residue.

It was in that moment that he knew his mastery had begun. There was a strange trust and intimacy that came from the potential for violence that never blossomed. He had an opportunity to hurt the weapon, but he didn’t as some might to show their power over the man in front of them. Why beat a dog that wasn’t yet doing anything wrong? Order came from pain, but it required chaos to start first. The asset was too well trained and blunted down right now to go against him unless he pushed his luck.

Using the cloth, he wiped off the remnants of soap and stubble and set both aside once he was satisfied. Now how hard was that? Thawed, bathed, shaved and ready to face the world, but he knew there was more to this than taking care of a favoured weapon. He still had hours to fill, and the opportunity wasn’t something that he would waste regardless of the fact that he probably had better things to do than usher around something that could kill him with a sneeze.

He gave the asset a casual pat on a smooth cheek and turned to regard the two medical staff. “What now? I take it there are steps to get him up to speed.”

“Now he’s fed,” the shorter of the two men said, stepping over to the door to speak with one of the guards. It didn’t take long for the ‘meal’ to appear, which happened to be a green thick smoothie of some kind. The drink looked thick enough to chew on, but he passed no judgment until he was handed the thick plastic glass that contained it.

Brock shifted it in the glass before daring to stick his finger in it to taste. He regretted the decision immediately. “Oh seriously, tastes like someone puked this. This is a joke, right?”

“It has all the required nutritional value without the high-molecular proteins to disrupt his digestive tract,” the taller man said with narrowed eyes. “Anything else, and you’ll have a repeat of what he did on your feet in the showers.”

It was only the memory of how that vomit that prompted him hand the glass to the asset without much of a fight. So the weapon didn’t get steak and potatoes, but it seemed like a cruel sort of punishment for anything to drink something that vile. Yet, without complaint or because there was nothing else offered, the Winter Soldier took the glass and willingly drank the green stuff down, throat working with each swallow and apparently not noticing the taste.

He took the empty glass back and set it aside as the two men brushed passed him like he wasn’t even there. Apparently bathing and feeding was where his activities ended because he was forced to suffer through hours of reflex tests. He didn’t even know the human body had so many reflexes for neural function, involuntary and voluntary. The Winter Soldier seemed to mostly check out for those, but their gazes occasionally met as he watched with an air of boredom. This was about as drab as security detail, but he recognized it as important.

The rest of the day passed with him having little opportunity to make a greater impression on the asset aside from the occasional staring contest. There were tests, more tests, orders to move around, sit down, crouch, raise arms, lower arms and only at the end of the day did the technicians come to do maintenance on that metal prosthetic. That was hours of the asset staring off into space and him shifting his weight from foot-to-foot almost wishing he had bothered to take a bigger sip of that gross smoothie himself.

While he was hungry, he was too interested in watching the technician work to be pulled away. Soon enough, the asset was given some kind of green light, no doubt primed for a mission. Those blue eyes moved around the room, ready and apparently willing to follow commands even when it apparently was for the weapon to rise and go to a different room. Brock moved to follow, but his path was blocked by a guard.

“Day is over, sir. Go home, be back same time tomorrow,” the grizzled man said, though they couldn’t actually be that different in age. He glanced beyond to the asset walking with a fluid deadliness, ignoring everyone and everything as apparently unimportant.

“I’m staying here,” Brock replied with a shrug. What was he going to go home to, an empty apartment with dog toys he hadn’t thrown out yet? Nah, he’d risk the asset tonight.

“No one stays with him over night.”

“And who stays with him on overnight missions?” Seriously, the bureaucracy in this place was startling. Why did everyone have to make this difficult?

“The… handlers, sir,” the guard said, though seemed to realize the implications of that and frowned deeply at him. “You’re not a handler. You’re not trained or cleared as one.”

“Are you refusing me because no one actually has clearance, or none of my compatriots have dared to?” Brock raised his eyebrows, tucking his thumbs into his belt loops. The corner of his lip twisted into a smirk. “I’m staying; I get a day with the asset, so my time isn’t up.”

“I’ll call it in,” the guard finally muttered.

“You do that, but only come find me if Pierce orders me out,” Brock said as he shouldered passed the guard and traveled down the hallway in the direction that the asset went. There were enough doors to get confused, but he stopped in front of the one with armed guards, muttering technicians and a steel door that a rampaging rhino couldn’t hope to blast through.

No one opposed him when he had the door unlocked and stepped inside. The asset was sitting on the bed wearing only pants again, but was drinking another one of those vile smoothies. Obviously this was a bedtime snack based on the hovering technician. Why did a weapon need to sleep after just being woken up anyway?

“You save me any,” he asked as he approached the two. The technician glared at him, but the Winter Soldier actually paused in drinking down the meal and stared at him over the rim of the glass. Slowly, the glass came down.

“It’s a special diet for…”

“Yeah, yeah, got keep him well-muscled and not shitting his pants, I get it,” Brock replied though both of them blinked when the asset offered him the glass. Unlike last time, it wasn’t empty. “No, you drink it. Missing a few meals won’t hurt me.”

There was a brief moment of consideration before the asset probably took his words as an order and finished off the vile stuff. The technician took the glass and ordered the asset to lay down, which was followed and then an expectant look was thrown at him.

“Don’t look at me; I ain’t laying next to him. His feet are cold,” he replied with as much of a smart-ass voice as he could. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“You shouldn’t be in here at all.”

“Ah well, I’ve got clearance to be here. Do you?” He smirked when the technician flushed and glared at him again before leaving the room.

Brock looked around, but aside from a toilet, a small sink and a bed, the place was empty. He didn’t even look over as the locks were sounded, instead moving to a wall that kept him in direct sight of the asset laying there like the guy was actually going to sleep. He didn’t really have to worry about a vigil though because the lights went off a moment later, casting him and the weapon in complete darkness.

So much for studying his new prize. He grunted and leaned back against the wall, intent on getting some sleep since the place was entirely silent. The biggest noise was the sound of him shifting and then settling when his stretched out as he leaned on the cold cement wall. It wasn’t the first time he’s slept sitting up and wouldn’t be the last either.

He realized that he didn’t know if the asset could see in the dark and would stalk him and kill him there. It didn’t really matter to him honestly because there had been plenty of opportunities for the weapon to end his life, so sleeping in the dark didn’t seem like such a stretch to him. He didn’t expect any problems given the technician had ordered the asset to lay down and so far, aside from a few blunders and over-exaggerated movements, the weapon followed orders to the letter.

So, he slept on an empty stomach and well enough that when he awoke to the feel of the hairs on the back of his neck rising in alarm, he was instantly aware that something was wrong. However, hours had to have passed despite the complete darkness in the room, and his head jerked around as if listening for sound. There was a ghost of touch at his pant leg, and his fist snapped out to the spot where whatever had touched him should have been.

There was nothing.

He was on high alert anyway, drawing his legs in to get his weight under them before a foot stepped on one of his knees, forcing it down so easily that he fell over with a loud curse. “You little shit, come here,” he snarled angrily.

The asset was beside him without even making a sound. He felt the press of the feet brushing his hand as the weapon came to stand next to him as ordered. He hissed and punched the asshole in the thighs twice as hard as he could before grabbing the asset’s pants and dragging the bastard down to the floor. He knew that the asset went with the pull because the man buckled instantly with his grip and came to kneel next to him. He was angry enough to take another swing into the darkness, feeling his fist clip the asset’s jaw.

“What are you doing out of bed?”

“…”

“Answer me,” Brock snapped as he reigned at his temper. Was that even considered a violation of a direct order to get out of bed in the middle of the night? No one had actually told the asset that the bed was the only place the weapon could go in the room. Shit, if this turned into an ass-wiping request, he was going to strangle the asset.

“Well,” he demanded.

“…on the floor,” came the slow cautious reply. The voice that said it was deep from disuse, gravelly and husky at the same time.

“Speak clearly,” he barked, his hand closing on the asset’s wrist.

“Sleeping on the floor,” the asset replied firmly with far more clarity and ease.

Brock growled but released his grip when it seemed that he wasn’t going to have to kick the shit out of the weapon he was supposed to be bonding with on some level. He exhaled violently to settle his temper and then returned to leaning on the wall and stretched his legs out. That was not the kind of event he wanted to have, but it also assured him that the asset didn’t make a sound when moving. Good, he didn’t have to worry about listening to clomping boots before his head was caved in.

“…sir?”

“Yeah, sleep on the damn floor, just don’t wake me up again,” he snapped, though most of his agitation was actually gone. He admired something that could move like that, though he just wished it wasn’t while he was trying to sleep. Things that woke him up in the night generally were stabbed to death. “Settle,” he finally hissed as an order.

There was a faint sound of the asset’s metal arm gliding on the cement floor and he could estimate the distance easy enough to know it was right by his leg. Now he expected the weapon to curl up like a cat next to him, but instead he opened his eyes again when there was a pressure on his thigh as the asset’s cheek came to rest on his leg. There wasn’t any further movement either, as the weapon had literally settled down.

He couldn’t hit the bastard again for doing as he ordered, and he amended that he needed to be more specific. Scooter had needed very specific orders too. Damn, he was going to sleep with a weapon against his thigh, wasn’t he? Well, he wanted to make an impression, didn’t he and this was a prime opportunity to do just that.

He lifted a hand from his lap and set it to the side of the asset’s neck, his thumb brushing locks of hair away from the skin. The asset tightened up a moment, but he simply rubbed his hand on the cool skin in assurance. It was like having his hand on the butt of his pistol that he normally kept under his pillow. Now instead of a gun, it was a far deadly weapon under his hand.

Brock slept again, assured of his own safety and that of his charge. When the lights came back on the sound morning, he blinked his eyes open and glanced at the asset who was alert and completely awake, his hand still resting comfortably on the weapon’s neck. The door opened and a team of medical staff walked in, froze at the sight of an empty bed and then all seemed to look in his direction at the same time.

Slowly, he smirked, pointedly rubbing his hand over the asset’s neck before removing it. “Up,” he ordered and he almost didn’t see the rise because it happened so quickly. He took his time, stretching his legs and arms and then cracking his back as the asset stood waiting. He pushed himself to his feet, stifled a yawn for show and regarded the team that seemed caught between fascination and horror.

“You guys brought something to eat, right? Hospitality in this place is shit,” he said as he walked away from the wall he had been warming, feeling the asset fall in at his elbow. Alexander Pierce, eat your damn heart out.

“He’s not eating today,” a young woman said, the first to recover. “Sit on the bed,” she ordered the asset who glanced sidelong at him before following the order.

He watched impassively but still with the ghost of a smirk on his lips as most of the team went over to tend to the asset, though he noted that there was no damage, not even the hint of a bruise from hitting the weapon last night. He turned his head and was given what he suspected was supposed to be breakfast, and he knew military field rations when he saw them. It was better than starving, so he shook up the bag and gave it the allotted time to heat up before he cracked it open and ate as he watched the medical team.

“How does day two work,” he finally asked.

“We give his mind opportunity to expand to set memories and impressions of you in. You’ll be alone today with him, but as I’m sure you’ve been told, expect little from him,” the young woman said to him. He couldn’t tell if she was team leader, but she was writing down things that were called from the rest of the team. They were doing an awful lot of measuring.

“You’re measuring him for new clothes while I work?”

The woman sneered at him. “Surface area, Agent Rumlow. We base medication doses on surface area rather than weight, but I don’t expect you to understand. You’re a soldier.”

Ah, so they were going to drug the living daylights out of the asset and make him baby-sit? Pierce had warned him about the need for a book, but he wondered how many brought one. He had heard they did that kind of shit way back in the fifties and all the way up to the seventies, using psycho-enhancing medications to implant ideas and memories in people.

Brock watched as the asset was prepped, and if the Winter Soldier was aware of what was about to happen, the weapon gave no sign. No, he was too well-trained to resist the slide of the intravenous catheter, the tape, the muttering people in his face. Their eyes met, and the predator seemed to pace behind those eyes, restless. Clearly not all aspects of the asset were compliant, hmm?

“Are you really sending HYDRA’s greatest weapon on an LSD trip?” He just had to ask to annoy the team and disrupt their science talk. He was a soldier, but he wasn’t stupid either. He had been around the block enough times to know that not all drug trips resulted in good times for the individual involved.

“It’s a cocktail known to work on him, and he’s been through this five times very recently,” the woman snapped as she wrote more notes and was apparently calculating. She called out a few drug names and dosages, which another technician was drawing up. “If you think you’ve made enough of an impression on him already, we can stop.”

Brock knew better than that. He’d take the acid trip over not having assurances. “How did the other five do?”

“You’re all in here alone, Agent Rumlow.”

“And HYDRA wouldn’t have cameras in here to observe, now would they?” No, if the asset was so important and the handler left alone, he knew they were watching.

Still, he finished his meal in a bag and crumpled it up as they began to inject this all important ‘cocktail’ into the Winter Soldier’s veins. At first, he didn’t think anything would happen, but after a moment, the asset’s pupils grew huge and muscles slackened, the poor bastard wavering on the bed and the medical team picked up their pace and moved to leave as quickly as possible. Great, alone with a drug junkie.

“Good luck,” the lead medical woman called in a feigned sweetness. The door closed behind them.

Brock didn’t know how the asset was even sitting up, but it was clear that the predator had vacated the building with the onset of the drugs. He walked over and stood in front of the weapon, leaning down so they were face-to-face. He reached out and grabbed the Winter Soldier’s slackened jaw before almost gently directing the lucid creature to lay down. There was no grace to the act, just a body slumping over. Maybe he should have asked for that book, huh?

He shifted and seated himself on the bed, pulling the asset’s legs up to drape over his lap before folding his arms behind his head and simply staring up at the ceiling. He hummed softly, having nothing better to do even with the faint twitches from the muscles laying over his thighs. He didn’t think about much really, though he occasionally looked at his absolutely drugged out prize now and again, though his humming continued for a few hours.

Eventually, with nothing better to do besides pacing, he reached up and stroked his fingers up and down the back of the asset’s neck just so people could see him doing it. Hours passed, but he was aware of the stirring of the beast long before the drugs were probably supposed to wear off. When the asset shifted, his set his hand to the weapon’s head and directed it back to the pillow. “Shh, settle,” he remarked, not wanting to deal with something with that kind of power stumbling around half witted. He dealt with that yesterday.

However, unlike yesterday when the asset was disoriented but still heavily trained, he underestimated the power of that cocktail. The weapon soon sat up, drawing legs from him, and for a moment, he thought he was going to be subjected to another high potential for vomit based on the pale sweatiness that the asset had been reduced to. He would have shoved the other down, but he was curious what was about to happen. How much training still remained?

The Winter Soldier shifted on the bed slowly with all the grace of a dying fish on a beach, and finally the poor drugged out bastard just flopped over on the other side. He couldn’t tell if it was intentional or purposeful, but the asset’s head was in his lap and the weapon stilled again. So that was it, huh? Cuddling up with the world’s deadliest assassin?

Brock leaned over and pulled the asset’s legs back up on the bed, arranging the limbs so they at least looked comfortable before he went back to leaning. His fingers scraped a tangle of dark hair back from the asset’s face, but from what he could see, those pupils were so wide and unfocused it probably didn’t even matter. His hand came to rest back on the weapon’s neck, and his fingers stroked occasionally as they settled in silence with each other. Oddly, he felt a little at peace like this.

They suffered no problems, and at the allotted time, the door opened to admit the team again. No one seemed surprised to see the Winter Soldier settled on the bed looking to be asleep, head in his lap. He was dismissed while they tended to the weapon, and this time, he didn’t fight the dismissal. He was tired, hungry and bored to tears.

He went home, showered, ate, got some shut eye only to return again to the same bank, but Pierce was there to meet him. Himself included, only five of them were standing, and he instantly noted that one of their number was missing. He didn’t know who and he didn’t really care, but he wondered if there had been an LSD trip accident or maybe a bathroom death. That would explain the tiles.

“Gentlemen and lady, welcome,” Alexander said, smiling and nodding at each of them in turn. “As I’m sure some of you are aware, a handler requires an impression to get a thinking weapon to listen to their commands. You’ve all been given opportunity to do just that. However, not all impressions are strong based on various factors that we haven’t the time to discuss.”

Brock suddenly realized that Alexander was probably a man who had made a strong impression on the Winter Soldier, probably an impression that had lasted years. The weapon had been in Pierce’s care since at least 1991, plenty of years to develop a sense of a weapon’s willingness to work. All those whispered words, the gentle touches suddenly made for more sense. Pierce wasn’t just the big boss, the man was probably one extremely bonded to the Winter Soldier. He should have thought of it sooner, should have picked the man’s brain on techniques to get a strong impression, but then… would Alexander even have told him or just smiled that cool smile at him and changed the topic?

“Today is a very simple exercise. We’re going to test how good of an impression you made,” Alexander said and turned his head to look back towards the safety deposit box room. The asset wasn’t there, but the older man didn’t seem bothered. “I want each of you to array yourself apart in the room. As much distance as you can from one another. We don’t want any confusion.”

They spread out, and Brock managed to find a corner to lean in, his arms crossed over his chest. He hoped this wasn’t going to result in more brains flying. The white marble floors probably couldn’t take that kind of violence and they would definitely need a new paint job.

“None of you have to do anything at all. The Winter Soldier will approach whoever he has formed the strongest impression for,” Alexander said and the asset appeared escorted by the woman from yesterday and left at Pierce’s elbow. “You aren’t to move, any of you. This process can take minutes, and I’m sure you all have enough patience to understand the rewards, yes?”

Aside from the ability to smirk and gloat over the others? Brock was actually certain he knew the outcome already, but he didn’t show that cocksure smirk just yet. He hadn’t exactly done a lot while the Winter Soldier was on a drug trip after all, and he hadn’t asked anyone else what they had done. However, he was confident in a few minutes that the Winter Soldier would chose him as the best of the best.

Pierce set loose the weapon with a few soft words and a release hand signal that Brock recognized from an agility class he had taken with Scooter. So, they had all trained some dogs at some point, huh?

The Winter Soldier stepped away from Alexander and looked between each of them. The asset looked at him last, and he swore it was a purposeful gesture because as soon as the weapon saw him, there was a direct beeline for his position. For a moment, he thought he might have to pull a weapon to defend himself because watching the Winter Soldier come was like facing down a runaway freight train. He lifted his hands up, opening his palms as the asset stopped rather abruptly in front of him. “Easy now, big guy. No need to rush.”

That was it? He looked around the bulk of the asset to find everyone glaring at him except for Pierce who was clearly taking his measure. He set a hand to the asset’s chest and gently turned the weapon aside so he could face his superior directly. “I thought you said minutes, not seconds, sir.”

Alexander wore a smile that gave absolutely nothing away. “I did, didn’t I?” The silence that followed was very heavy, but Brock held his ground. “It appears you made quite the impression, Agent Rumlow.” Then Pierce spoke in that language again – he swore it was at least partially Russian – and the asset walked away from him to stand next to the old man again.

Words were spoken, a gentle pat to the small of the asset’s back and then Pierce released the weapon again to find someone else who made an impression. Except… the Winter Soldier returned to him again. Alexander had to call the asset back, and there were more words but no pat this time. The air was getting heavier, the stares in his direction not at all kind. The third release and this time the asset hesitated and stood for a few minutes and then once again bee-lined to him.

He realized the danger when this third time came around. The weapon was going to get him killed. He stepped from his corner and slapped his thigh hard enough for it to echo in the room. “Stop,” he ordered and the asset froze. “Someone _else_ ,” he snapped. For a moment, he thought the asset would keep coming at him anyway but then, with obvious grudging acceptance when Pierce also seemed to call the soldier similar instructions, the asset went to the man who had been first in their line.

It went smoothly after that, the asset giving strength of impression each time being sent out. Yet, Brock couldn’t help but notice that while the asset walked, those blue eyes flicked to him. He was young enough in his career to know that the kind of success that he had had could be trouble for him. He had to wonder if his impression was stronger than Pierce’s had been.

“That’s all for today. I will be contacting each of you with a mission in the near future and perhaps as they come up there after,” Alexander said. “You’re all dismissed.” People began to file out of the bank, and he ignored the three dirty looks he received. “Agent Rumlow, a word before you go.”

Brock stopped and detoured to where Alexander watched him come with the asset standing there at the man’s elbow. He stopped in front of the older man and forced a grin through the sinking feeling that he had about this conversation. The asset didn’t move a muscle, and he thought of taking a swing at that empty head.

“Quite the impression,” Alexander said with measured tones. They eyed each other. “I wondered if it would be you.”

“Sir?”

Alexander made a hand gesture and the asset drifted away to stand next to Brock’s elbow instead. He watched the older man’s eyes, able to see the thoughts rapidly being processed. A shrewd man like Pierce didn’t show all the cards to anyone. “I didn’t think it would be you honestly,” he finally said. “You had the temperament but not the age to you. I picked you last because I thought you’d need more years, but that seeing him would push you to want him.”

Brock turned his head to regard the weapon who stood at his elbow, but their eyes didn’t meet at all. “You put me last because so many other drugged out episodes would override whatever I accomplished with him.”

“Exactly,” Pierce replied. “I was in the middle of the line of twelve people. Only four of us lived to see the other side of the line.”

“What did you do to make an impression?” He knew he was taking a risk by asking, but he knew the old man already knew all that he had done. The guy probably had a report on that shiny desk about it.

Alexander looked beyond him to the asset. “I looked him in the eye and told him he would be mine,” he said simply. “Back then, there wasn’t the same process as you went through. Too few candidates survived their first mission based on a line. People got mauled during extractions, so I developed a surer system.”

“Has the asset ever just walked to someone before?”

“Once, in Soviet Russia, he had a brilliant handler whose name will remain sealed for now,” Alexander said with a small shrug. “I heard the Winter Soldier went to him immediately after a drug trial, and they worked well for years.”

A feeling of discomfort twisted his gut. “Sir?”

“The Soviet handler beat him for a failure on a mission, though it was proven later the information was bad,” Pierce said slowly. “The Winter Soldier doesn’t defend himself against injuries caused by his handlers; it was part of the conditioning and modification. You can beat him here and now on this floor, and he’ll let you. I could shoot him, and he’d stand for it.” There was a slow smile that came to the old man’s lips. “However, if you beat a dog hard enough, it will eventually bite, won’t it Agent Rumlow?”

“Not necessarily…” he replied uneasily.

“If you beat it constantly, it will. So it is the way with physical prompts of that nature.” Alexander gestured to the asset standing silently at his elbow. “You make a strong impression, and he’s yours. However, if you forget that the impression is something that lasts based on interaction, and positive reinforcement leads to positive punishment… you can expect the bond between you two to collapse eventually.”

“What happened to the Soviet agent?” He knew, but he wanted to hear it. He wanted to know the Winter Soldier destroyed the man just for the sake of hearing of that raw power.

Alexander Pierce smiled a cold smile. “They only found his fingers, broken and bloody. Beyond that, only a lot of blood in the safe house.”

Brock turned his head to regard the Winter Soldier, and the predator lurked there, watching him with a keen cunning interest. The corner of his lips rose in a smirk, and he knew that while he might have made a strong impression, he hadn’t mastered the asset. They had only just begun. He reached up and grasped the asset’s chin, pulling their faces close together. “You are mine, understand?”

The asset blinked slowly at him, as clear an assent as he could get without vocalization. He turned back to Pierce. “I’ll be sending you on a mission with him first,” the old man said simply. “If he does even three quarters of the things for you as he had for me, I’ll see you elevated in both HYDRA and SHIELD. You yourself will become a very fine asset for the organization.”

He glanced at the asset, but aside from pride and a shade of possessiveness, there was no warmth for the Winter Soldier. He felt no warmth for his gun, his knife or his grenades, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to let them loose out of his hands. Their gazes met and he knew that passed between them.

“Dismissed, Agent Rumlow.”

Brock walked away and this time the Winter Soldier didn’t follow him, but he felt the cold gaze on his back the entire way out.

***

“I just wanted to let you know. The CIA has been calling foul to anyone that questions why one of their agents was in that room. Media and free-lancers are crawling all over the place,” Sam said softly, hints of concern there in the tone. “I saw some of the pictures; it was definitely him.”

“Alright, thanks Sam,” Steve replied and held in the deep sigh he wanted to issue down the phone line. It wasn’t going to help anyone. “I’ll be returning to D.C. in a day or so. I’m just waiting on an important list.”

There was a snort of amusement from the other end of the line. “Man, you know he ain’t going to be leaving town just yet. If he’s fallen off the wagon, you better believe he’s hunting HYDRA here. I just wish he wouldn’t make it so public.”

“For how public that was, I wonder how many slipped under the radar,” Steve replied and this time did release a heavy sigh. He left town for a few days and Bucky made the biggest statement possible in his absence. Was it personal to taunt him? “Keep me in the loop, and we’ll meet up when I get back. I really appreciate this, Sam.”

“Yeah, no worries, man. I’ll see about following a couple of leads,” Sam said and they both hung up, leaving behind the heavy topics of conversation.

Only for Steve, the topics were only just starting. This just added to the mystery of all that was happening, all the clues that were hidden inside what was left of HYDRA that he couldn’t put his thumb on completely. HYDRA had been far less hidden in the war, though their projects were just as deadly. Maybe it was just that everyone knew who the enemy was back then whereas now the guy shaking your hand was the same guy spying on your phone.

Or maybe that had been going on all along when the war was on, and he just managed to steer clear of it better. He remembered well how easily HYDRA had a sleeper agent watching his procedure, so perhaps he had just missed the signs back then. They were everywhere, and he hadn’t been able to tease out who was who yet given that everyone knew where he stood on the whole mess, especially after the helicarrier incident. Now he still didn’t know if he was shaking hands with a fan of his or someone looking to off him for various political reasons.

It was only made more complicated with the Winter Soldier on the loose. This public murder had made it clear that the two options for Bucky had been reduced to one. Without a command structure, without superiors and apparently handlers tell his friend what to do, he had hoped that Bucky would go inactive, and just sort of wander in a daze or shut down to be found. It had happened before, missions completed and then the Winter Soldier went off the grid only to be found in some hovel somewhere staring at a wall, trying to remember, trying to resist the conditioning.

The other option was a reality it seemed, and Steve rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead. The less desirable option was this right here… death and a lot of it. The Winter Soldier was active and out of control and no one particularly knew where his friend (or what was left of him) would strike. No doubt people who knew of the Winter Soldier were frightened, and they had a right to be if HYDRA’s weapon was killing off entire CIA teams in hotel rooms. It wasn’t very subtle; it might even be a message for the rest of the organization.

If only he knew how much Bucky remembered, then he would have an idea of how to reach his friend. Yet, Bucky had saved his life by hauling him out of the Potomac, but he still couldn’t guarantee that the act of defiance was something he could rely on as a safe bet for memory restoration. Bucky’s brain was probably a mess of confusion, anger, and hate piled on top of all the scar tissue that kind of hard life had to leave on anyone. Bucky hadn’t even come to him either, and while that hurt, he understood. Some things people needed to take care of alone; goodness knew he had tried a few times and even successfully done it when Bucky wasn’t there to drag him out.

“Cap.”

He turned his head at the sound of his nickname, though where it came from, he couldn’t find the source. Tony’s house was a maze of flashy devices, any of which could be used to call him. He had given up trying by this point because Stark seemed to derive greater pleasure calling him on different ones all the time.

“Yeah Tony,” he finally just said, leaning his knuckles against his cheek.

“Cap.” That suddenly sounded right by his ear, and the only thing near him was the toaster.

“Stark, I will break your toaster if you don’t tell me what you want,” Steve replied and took hold of the device to throw it across the room. He wouldn’t actually throw it, not believing much in property damage of even annoying friends.

“Okay, okay, have mercy. Put the toaster down and we’ll talk like civilized men.” This came from the fridge behind him. He did set the toaster back down. “Come down to my play room.”

“Which one?”

“The big one, Rogers.”

“You have three,” Steve pointed out as he moved off the chair he had been sitting in. “You need to be a little more specific.”

Tony suddenly appeared in the doorway to the kitchen looking none too pleased. “You know, if you don’t stop being a complete bastion of fun, I’m going to kick you out. And stop threatening my toaster; it’s the one device I can actually cook with.”

Steve just rolled his eyes and followed Tony out of the kitchen and into the elevator. The last few days had been productive both to get his mind off of things but also to pick up more information at the same time. There hadn’t even been any birthday, business or anniversary parties to attend, which seemed like a small miracle given all the invitations that Tony received for any or all at once. It seemed that Pepper had at least taken his side on getting him to have a bit of downtime, though running down a highway was as entertaining as lapping Sam sometimes.

They had always made a little headway on the file, though most of that involved Tony learning Cyrillic far faster than he could, though he did actually make an effort himself. He spoke Russian better than he read or wrote it, and even then, he wasn’t fluent by any means. It had also been accidental in learning the language script that both of them realized that there were a few German words thrown in here and there to change meanings of entire sentences or just make it jumbled.

Once they had realized that, things were easier, setting out words neither of them knew and looking them up in a German language dictionary to confirm and throw out their meanings. It had been easier that way, but still, most of the early stages had everything to do with mind wipes, torture, surgical procedures and drug testing. Still, they knew that handlers went from being trained soldiers to ‘bonded operatives’ sometime in the seventies.

The difference between the two was rather crude too. The Winter Soldier either accepted the presence of a person or the Winter Soldier killed whoever tried, sometimes on the very first meeting with no words exchanged. Whatever tipped the scales the scientists involved only theorized, but it was assumptions with no solid evidence. The process was revised after the shattering of the USSR and apparently was noted to increase success.

Steve mulled all the facts over again his head as they walked down the stairs to one of many of Tony’s ‘play rooms’, and he couldn’t particularly tell one from another aside from the devices inside and by what floor he happened to be on. This ‘play room’ happened to have more computers, monitors and less in the way of gadgetry then the others, so he knew this was the room he had spent the most time in aside from the living room and kitchen.

“Two things, Cap,” Tony said as the man veered off to one of the monitors. There was a whole screen of Cyrillic, but some of it was highlighted in green. “I found a small list, a note really for candidates for a trial. It was for about eleven years ago when HYDRA was starting to get really active.”

“Handlers?”

“Candidates,” Tony said and gestured at the list. “Someone with the codename was asking permission to try candidates to see if an impression could be formed, since, as far as I can make out, they were starting to freeze and thaw the Winter Soldier more often and closer together.”

Steve counted the number of highlighted green aspects of the message and found there to be ten of them. “So ten candidates at that time?”

“Yeah, but it gets better.” He was pretty certain that was just more Tony sarcasm. “The incident in the hotel with the CIA…”

Steve frowned. “I hadn’t gotten around to telling you about that yet.”

“Uh hello, my house? I can listen in to any phone call I want.” Tony saw the dark look on his face and must have realized the error of not respecting privacy. “Peace, peace, JARVIS was tracking certain words and picked up CIA. That’s how I found out… and knew it wasn’t the terrorist act they were saying it was.”

He was still frowning, but the explanation was satisfactory enough that he didn’t just walk out. “Go on then,” he said with a string of tension in his voice as a warning.

“The CIA agent shot when the firemen entered the room… her name was on the handler candidate list,” Tony said, flicking up a profile of a severe looking woman from a CIA profile. “Meet the now deceased Janis Keller. Age forty-eight at time of death, stayed with the CIA for eighteen years.”

“HYDRA in the CIA too, huh?” He wasn’t surprised by that at all. “So Bucky knew her from the handler days and he killed her.” He read the profile, finding skills there that he knew HYDRA would fine appealing, but also the whole fact that she was often disciplined for impatience and harsh treatment.

Tony was typing something on a keyboard before evidence photos of the hotel all came up, showing a brutal scene of murder. As much as he hated to look at them, Steve recognized the work of someone skilled and deadly in that slaughter. Having fought Bucky, he knew that those people had died in fear and most of them had died very quickly. He couldn’t imagine being a fireman walking into that scene. It was a warzone inside a hotel room.

Yet, he saw the difference from the photos of Keller, saw the things that all manner of torture in the way she had died. Hers was not a quick death. Bucky had made her suffer before he had been interrupted. Was the ways of a handler so horrible that his friend had to resort to torture?

Steve rubbed a hand over his jaw. “She died very painfully.”

“Yeah, according to the medical report, most of her fingers were broken, her lower jaw was shattered, and aside from the head shot that killed her, she was shot once in the abdomen,” Tony said, looking over at him.

“Liver shot,” Steve said grimly. He’d seen a few of them in the war; they were a slow bleed death in the field and a possible surgical candidate if there was a medical camp nearby. “He wanted her to suffer.”

The cold brutality was disheartening, yet Bucky hadn’t killed the firemen who had entered the room. He had fled, leaving innocent lives a little more tainted with horror but alive. The Winter Soldier probably left few witnesses when on mission or moved so swiftly that witnesses had no idea what they had seen. He tried to take what small grain of hope there was from that scene.

“What about the other names on that candidate list?” He turned his attention away from the bloody scene and approached Tony at the computer keyboard. “How many are alive?”

Tony was silent for a few minutes, obviously cross-referencing the names, files, dates and articles. “Only one is alive,” he finally said with a shrug. “Four of the candidates were apparently killed in action on various missions around the world on the exact same day eleven years ago. Obviously, your friend didn’t like them.” He gave Tony a cool stare. “But the interesting bit is one of these guys died four days before Keller, a suicide.”

“I bet it wasn’t.” Steve rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Bucky was trained to assassinate, so it wouldn’t be hard to make a death look like a suicide.

“You’re absolutely right, my astute protégé,” Tony replied with a smirk. “The guy’s tongue was missing and like Keller, most of his fingers had been broken.”

He swallowed hard, remembering what Rumlow had said back in the hospital room. There had been plenty of references to leashes and one particular comment stood out to him. _”Like a well-trained dog.”_ And what did people with dogs do to get them to do a trick or maneuver? They said a word or signed with their hands. It was enough of a bitter reality check that it almost made him sick to his stomach. Handlers were just glorified trainers whose job was to get the Winter Soldier to kill.

“He’s killing the handlers just like Natasha said he would,” he muttered, catching Tony’s eye. “Who is alive of that list?”

“An ex-SHIELD agent,” Tony said, bringing up a profile and missing the shocked paling of Steve’s face. “Agent Brock Rumlow, leader of STRIKE and apparently spent a lot of his early days as a security detail for Alexander Pierce when he was heading the organization. You probably even worked with him, yeah?”

“Son of a…” Steve cut himself off from actually swearing, but he had to grasp Tony’s desk to keep from breaking something.

“Whoa Cap, that’s the closest to swearing I have ever heard you come. I think you just graduated… what’s wrong?”

“Rumlow is in the hospital in D.C. I spoke to him… he was the one who gave me the name handler,” Steve said tightly, feeling anger burn through his muscles. He had been again too weary to pick up the signs, too distrustful to think that Rumlow might actually have the manner to be anything more than a bruiser for HYDRA. “I have to get back. Bucky is going to kill him, and I want the pleasure on this one.”

“No can do, Cap. Brock Rumlow received a transfer out of hospital on the same night Keller was killed. His current location is… huh…” Tony didn’t often sound stumped. “He’s off the grid, but I’ll find him.”

For once, Steve wasn’t even certain that his friend could do that. While it might have only been one list of old candidates, he had no doubt that HYDRA was moving to gather together all the handlers to send them against Bucky to do whatever it was that they could to get the Winter Soldier under control. No matter what HYDRA might say, he knew that Bucky was valuable to them or they would have just killed his friend, unless they couldn’t.

He ignored the sound of Tony asking JARVIS for things and typing on the keyboard and instead stepped away from the computers and looking at the single picture of Janis Keller tied to the headboard of a bed, bloody, broken and very much dead. That was the fate of a handler, wasn’t it? A one way ticket into the jaws of death when something as powerful and unpredictable as Bucky, as Rumlow had put it, ‘slipped the leash’. That kind of destructive force would be wholly unpleasant, but for once, he couldn’t blame Bucky for going after them. Having worked first hand with Rumlow, he knew the brutality but also the cold efficiency of the man.

Steve knew he had to go back, now more than ever. He had to get to Bucky before Rumlow did because for once, he didn’t know who would win in that fight even if he liked to think it would be the Winter Soldier for once. No, Rumlow had been too calm, too certain, too smug about the whole situation for a burnt out dying man. That certainty made the man very dangerous and possibly insane.

“Tony, I need to burrow your jet,” Steve said softly.

“Shouldn’t we be doing more research so you know what you’re about to run into?” Tony didn’t sound surprised at all at the idea of his sudden departure.

“Rumlow had severe injuries and burns. I need to find Bucky before he recovers,” he replied with a shake of his head. How did one find a ghost story when that ghost was avoiding him completely? “I have to get him out of harm’s way.”

Tony snorted softly and pointed at the late Agent Keller. “I don’t think harm is in his way.”

“I know you don’t, but you didn’t know Brock. He was deadly as he was cunning and ruthless. He designed more tactical missions then I can count, and he led his team into and out of well-coordinated deadly situations without a scratch. He would close a trap around Bucky in such a way that he’d pull the teeth right out of him,” Steve said and rubbed a hand through his hair, messing it up as he considered the deadly implications of that kind of battle. “Bucky’s weaker than he was before hauling me out of the Potomac. He’s shown limitations in not killing innocent people. Brock is smart enough to see it; worse, he’ll use it.”

“JARVIS, be a dear and scrape the bottom and sides of the internet for every whisper, hint or rumour about Brock Rumlow.” Tony looked at him. “While that’s running, we can decrypt more of the hard copy file. You’re going to need to know how to reverse his conditioning if you have any hope of keeping your pal safe.”

Steve nodded, allowing grim determination flowing through him as he sat down to work. This was what he needed after all. He wanted to find a way to make things both right and true again.

***

He was empty still. All the things that he had lost, all the memories that had been stolen from him stood out right in front of him in pictures, text and even old videos, but he _felt_ nothing towards it. The Smithsonian display once again only showed him a reality that he was plainly out of touch with, staring at a face that matched his own but having no reference.

He was listed as James Buchanan Barnes, a Sergeant of the United States military initially sent over with the 107th division and later joining the Howling Commandos for special operations. People who knew him called him Bucky or Serge. He was the only Howling Commando to die in the line of duty.

Except he didn’t die. Not at first.

The Soviets had to pull everything out of him first, strip it away to leave behind a terrible emptiness that made him not only a terrible killer but an empty weapon where impressions overlay on basic wants and needs. He ignored pain; he ignored hunger; he ignored even basic human urges.

Yet, the truth of the information was only a verification as to whom he had been, not who he was. It was the only comfort that he could find in the world he was lost in. A single truth in the whispering lies of his world, a light in the darkness that he had long ago drowned in. The worst part was that some small part of this world, this life existed, small, buried and broken, scattered from so many other realities that he didn’t even know which piece was supposed to fit together let alone how to collect them up.

He vaguely knew that people spoke about him all the time. He had been a machine wearing a man’s face. He had been a robot a few times. Some liked to think of him as an attack dog. Others had only sworn at him, chasing him around like a broom chases a vermin. A few had seen him as a means. Others had called him nicer things.

He knew what he was right now: empty.

James Buchanan Barnes had been squished, beaten, rolled up and shut away so the information that poured in through his eyes was understood but he felt no emotion towards it. He was lost in the silence where orders were supposed to fill in the blank empty spaces, to give him purpose and take away the reality that fending for himself was a near impossible task for one who had skills but no wants of his own. The handlers were dead and ruined save one; his mission was as complete as he could get.

When was the emptiness supposed to fade and something new and warm take over in its place?

“Mummy, I want to be like Sergeant Barnes.” The little boy that ran in front of him had no idea how much like prey his darting was like. “Look mummy! I’ll be a hero too!”

“But he died. Wouldn’t you want to be like Captain America? He’s alive after all.” Did she not realize how close she was to losing the boy hopping up and down in front of him? His metal hand clenched in his pocket; he’d seen rabbits with more sense of survival.

The urge to reach out and kill for such signs of weakness almost overcame his sense of restraint. It was hard to master them because the urge was so primal, so basic that it was on the same level as breathing. It had always been that way when he had lost himself, the quiet predator lurking through his mind on the ready to accept that death came to the weak and the targets who couldn’t have a handle on their survival. There was no room inside of him for mercy because nature was merciless. It spared no one and why should he when his eyes followed the darting child moving to another screen where James and Steve were laughing. So easy… just a step, a flexion of his fingers to close on that small pale neck and then…

He snapped out of it when he was jostled a bit, his eyes flicking up to the face that matched his own. No, Bucky wasn’t dead but neither was he a hero. He was something in between those two realities, standing between the two existences.

Until he had a mission to ignore the flighty jumpy people around him, he was going to be a risk to everyone. Why were they so weak? For now, he was empty and in the dark, a ghost even. What else did he have but the skills to predate on anything that he chose to?

His eyes lifted to the video footage of James and Steve companionably together in an interview, his chin lifting and working his jaw in thought. Friends forever… unless miles of distance and meters of ice separated them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.


	4. A Promise

***

His first mission with the asset had been a complete and utter breeze. It was apparently standard in the way that he arrived with the Winter Soldier, touched down and led the weapon to the safe house. The debriefing was given and the lay-outs, time frame and objective were laid plainly as well as the intent. This mission was just an assassination to remove a political member who was gathering too much power of the right wing. No need to cover it up as an accident.

Brock released the asset as a man pulls a bullet into the chamber of a gun by cocking it, and his part in the mission was over. The asset took such missions alone, able to move and hide better than anyone else and the independence made the firm hold all the more apparent to the rest of the clean up team involved.

It was perfectly timed, perfectly completed and then the asset returned to his side to be settled back into the proverbial holster. The reward? A quick rub of his fingers along the back of the asset’s neck. That was after the mission report was given in bland objectified details, recorded to be sent and analyzed by people who monitored that kind of progress.

He had almost been disappointed with the ease of it, but he would later come to appreciate how well the asset responded to his commands when a mission went so very wrong. There were few extractions that went wrong, and so he had carried on with his life as a good SHIELD agent, a better HYDRA one and served in the capacity necessary.

Brock had been finishing giving a report on a mission he carried out for HYDRA to Pierce directly when the call had come in. He was used to being interrupted, so he didn’t care. Pierce was a busy man, had to rub more elbows than he would know what to do with. However, something in the tone piqued his interest and had him looking over as the telephone head set down.

“Suit up, Agent Rumlow. You’re going to Pakistan,” Pierce said with such a note of finality that he didn’t even question.

“Objective, sir?”

“Retrieval of a very important asset,” Alexander said grimly. He knew that look too well, knew that someone was going to pay for losing the asset on a mission. “His handler is dead; he will be erratic and dangerous.”

“I understand,” he replied, though he in fact didn’t. He knew the death of a handler happened, but it was often blamed on the handler rather than the weapon. After all, someone had to put the gun barrel in their mouth before the trigger was pulled and handlers knew better than to let the asset that close. “Who was his handler?”

“You didn’t know him, but he was known to be heavy-handed. We don’t waste time on dead men,” Pierce said as the older man rose from the chair to wander to the window. “You will be going in with a team once they locate him, but I expect you to get a handle on him alone.”

Great, more one-on-one time with the asset. He hoped this would result with another flopping of that head in his lap and certainly not his own head falling into his lap. “Any advice, sir?”

Alexander looked at him and managed a smile business-like smile. It wasn’t a comfort for the mission ahead of him. “He’s all yours.”

It was pathetic advice, but it was advice all the same, so he left and boarded a plane to be flown non-stop to Pakistan with only an approximate location of the asset’s last seen whereabouts. It was a pathetic small village ten miles beyond the original target site, and the place was not only dirt poor but probably full of hostiles that didn’t particularly like Americans. He would have a team of twelve at his disposal to locate and isolate the asset but once contact was made, his team was only to set a perimeter and he had to handle the weapon himself.

For the trip, he simply practiced his Russian and German, trying to come up to speed on them while he had time to do so. Besides, the asset was apparently more willing to listen to Russian, and he had a feeling that any edge that he had was one that he should look into. The bastard was either lurking or locked down somewhere drooling. However, the line between those two states could change in a moment’s notice.

He disembarked and was set up with a convoy and a guide to the village, and it was a small dirty place where goats made more noise than the people. They arrived in the dead of night, which hardly seemed fair when their quarry was best working in the dark. Still, they began at one end of the village and worked their way to the other end, finding nothing but scared families in all of the houses and having to lay out nothing in the way of casualties. Even the single road through the place was deserted. If the information was old, the Winter Soldier could have moved on by now.

If he was a malfunctioning weapon who had just butchered his handler and lost himself in a scrub village, where would he go? No where logical… that was it. He turned to the guide that had brought them here. “Are there any bomb shelters or cellars in the hills? Somewhere dark and cold?”

“No, just the well we passed on the outskirts of town,” the Pakistani said in rough English. “The well is very deep. Not much water.”

Brock brushed passed the man and signaled his team to fall in as he followed a hunch to the well, gesturing for his team to form a perimeter around it but keeping them at a safe distance. He slowly approached with his rifle raised and peered down the well. It was pitch black, forcing him to flip down and turn on his night-vision goggles.

He could see the faint shimmering of water near the bottom, the slimy walls that were caked with more dirt than the bloody land he was standing on. His goggles should have picked up the lump of a body or the glimmer of that prosthetic arm if the asset was down there. He thought of firing a round into the water to be certain, but he suspected an attack on anything in there would leave him with his head floating. “Up,” he ordered down the well.

There was suddenly the reflection of eyes peering up at him, cold and deadly. He had enough time to rip off his goggles before the asset was on the ledge of the well, knife flashing in the moonlight and across that metal arm. The Winter Soldier didn’t even pause before tackling him over, and he felt the flare of pain in his shoulder as the knife was driven to the hilt right through his armour and his flesh. He hissed in pain but his hand got a hold of the back of the asset’s neck, twisting the weapon’s head to the side. “You’re mine, now get off of me.”

The Winter Soldier shuddered, the knife twisting in his shoulder before the grip relented and the weapon rolled off of him. They somehow reached their feet at the same time, and Brock ripped the knife out of his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his own blood on the hilt. His entire focus was on the asset who was hunched over slightly, hands out ready to strike and kill him in a moment’s decision.

“Easy,” he crowed softly, dropping the knife to the dirt. “Easy now, I need you to settle.” He heard the sudden violent exhale, a challenge if he ever heard one. “On your knees,” he ordered softly, pointing to the ground.

The Winter Soldier went for him, crossing the distance so quickly he didn’t even realize that the asset was driven to knees before him until he felt the gentle butt of the weapon’s forehead against his belly. If he expected the asset to wrestle him down, it didn’t happen. In his own shadow, he looked down at the bastard who knew only order amid the chaos that was created with his existence.

Slowly, he laid a hand on the top of the asset’s head, pressing that forehead harder against his armoured belly. The asset put up no fight. That was good, he cupped the side of the weapon’s neck and looked at the rustle of gear as his team approached. “Did I say you could move?” They had enough sense to look startled. “Back to positions until I’ve secured the assets unless you all want to be cut to little pieces.”

When the men returned to the parameter, he looked down at the kneeling weapon before him. “Look at me.” The asset’s upturned face met his gaze. “Mission report right now.”

And the Winter Soldier reported as the creature was designed to, though no one was around to record it down. The mission objective had been satisfied, but the rendezvous time was off, not enough time provided for the asset to make it. His handler had taken him to task for the apparent lapse, but then had hesitated when the weapon had bared teeth during the beating. That single moment of weakness, the baring of a throat, the freezing in place, the flush of fear in the man’s eyes had triggered not just the predator but hit with the force of years of unfair power trips, unearned punishment, and fearful mockery. However, the Winter Soldier attacked because of a base primal instinct when there was no mission.

Apparently when a person was reduced to the level the Winter Soldier was, more primal behaviours reared their ugly head. The technicians were told never to dampen that particular behaviour because the men in charge wanted the quick violence that exploded with such reactions, though the urge for food and mating had been cut out completely. They wanted the Winter Soldier to be violent, to be primal, to be a creature that could turn a dying body into artistry. The viciousness was dampened by set mission objectives; the asset worked in those parameters. It was why there was always supposed to be a mission. Orders were mini missions, they curbed the behaviour and boxed it into something that was productive. No order, no mission, they had a problem.

Once the handler was dead, the two other members of the team had fled, been hunted and killed. With no extraction and no objective, the Winter Soldier had switched into idle gear and wandered away. While there were many cool dark places in the city, the asset had left in search of a cool dark but also quiet place, which happened to be the well. And then he stayed there until Brock had found him.

He gave the asset a rough slap on the cheek, hearty with more affection than brutality. “Injuries?”

_”None.”_ Like he had been told, the Winter Soldier defaulted to Russian. He realized belatedly he should have used it too but hadn’t and still didn’t.

“Weapons?”

_”All accounted for but a knife.”_ Yeah, it was the goddamn knife that had sunk into his shoulder, and damn that hurt.

He leaned down so that he was almost nose-to-nose with the weapon, his fingers stroking the covered neck with gentleness that belayed what he had to do, what he was going to enjoy doing. “You attacked me without the order. You know you don’t go against orders,” he said softly, eyeing the asset who stared at him. “Now I’ve got a wound I have to explain, but worse, I have to discipline you. You don’t attack when under an order, do you?”

Slowly, the Winter Soldier shook that empty head. Brock backhanded him hard across the face, feeling the tightening of muscles as the asset went with the blow. He’d split the bastard’s lip, but his charge seemed no more aware of it as their eyes continued to be locked together. He punched the asset in the face next, grasping that long hair to keep the weapon from falling backwards. “You deserve this,” he murmured softly. “Order through pain after all. I’m doing this because you’re mine. Because you’ve earned it.”

The asset didn’t resist even when he bent to grasp the knife that had previously been jammed into his shoulder. That wound hurt, but he accepted the pain with the pleasure of the situation; like the asset, he would learn from the pain as well, order himself appropriately. He’d also have it tended to after he had finished here, not about to push too far, just enough so that punishment was given for a mistake. The asset was supposed to follow orders perfectly; in no way had ‘up’ held any order to attack him.

“Give me your right hand.” It had been the hand that wielded the knife after all. The Winter Soldier did and only offered a soft hiss of pain when he stabbed the knife into the weapon’s palm. Those sorts of reactions were natural, and he didn’t reprimand for it. That done he tapped the hilt of the knife against the asset’s bruised cheek. “Your missing inventory,” he said, giving the knife back and watching his prize slip it away back into its sheathe.

“Up,” Brock ordered and the asset rose without hesitation, ignoring blood, wounds and pain, like a little well-programmed robot. He turned to the captain of the soldier unit. “Call it in. We have the asset and we need immediate evacuation.”

As it was called in, Brock turned to regard their guide who seemed rather in awe of the entire scene. He glanced at the asset, sighting the lurking predator and set a hand to the weapon’s chest in a clear denial as he pulled his pistol and shot the man in the head. Life was easier without witnesses.

He walked out of the village with the asset following at his elbow, the team keeping a relatively safe distance from the pair of them. A clean up team would be sent in to remove or shift the bodies so that it could be blamed on insurgence in the area, throwing more political strife into the mix of a slowly boiling situation. The little scrub village was wiped out. The extraction was routine, but the arrival back to base was a little more chaotic.

While he was taken for medical treatment, the Winter Soldier was taken to an impromptu plane and treated for damage which was already fast healing. No one mentioned that he had personally disciplined the asset in the field, but the plane ride back to the United States was admittedly very quiet. While the asset sat next to him unmoving, he reviewed the feel of that flesh under his hands, how something that powerful just sat there and allowed himself to be beaten, just like Pierce said. It hadn’t been anything more than discipline in his mind.

Slowly, just before touchdown, he reached up and rubbed the back of the Winter Soldier’s neck. “You’ll never have a weakness around me. You and I have a long prosperous future ahead of us. Don’t forget it.”

The Winter Soldier glanced at him, watching but non-judging. Just drinking it all in. Mastery of a weapon had never felt so close to the illusion of an erection until that very moment when their eyes met and Brock smirked in that cocksure confident way. The asset blinked eyes slowly, another assent, another acceptance of a strong hand to lead the way into a very certain future.

***

Skin grafts were a pain in the ass, but they were necessary and so he ignored the fact that he had been forced to literally lay still for seven days under heavy bandages so the skin had had an opportunity to take and make him pretty again. That wasn’t actually true, though they had done his face, but it was more to keep his appearance as stable as possible and to not mar his facial expressions. The areas over his joints were most important, his hands, elbows, shoulders and knees had received the most attention.

He needed to have good skin and not scar tissue for those areas so that he could move fluidly and have any chance of keeping up with the asset who was still on the loose. He was in no hurry to heal up even if the Russian division of HYDRA he was holed up with was on a slow burn of frantic searching for the Winter Soldier. They hadn’t given him updates even as he lay bored staring at the ceiling, but they hadn’t needed to. He was under heavy guard despite the fact that they weren’t even in the United States, so that meant that HYDRA had no idea where the asset was and if the weapon could make it out of the country.

Brock was assured that the asset wasn’t coming for him, probably wouldn’t even dare to leave the United States. The command structure was gone, which meant his prize was without something to do and those generally led to idle time. The fact there was no information structure as well limited what the asset was capable of doing and where the man would go, so he had no doubt that he could find the weapon lurking around in Washington D.C. waiting for sign of something to do.

At worst, the Winter Soldier was hunting rogue agents of HYDRA, none of whom would know where he was. No doubt that made a lot of people trapped in the United States nervous, but he was in no hurry to get back into the game until he was healed.

The longer he was out, the duller the weapon would become, the more cracks in the careful training that had kept the weapon in line. Outwardly, the Winter Soldier might even start to act like a normal person on some level, but the deep psychological training was layered deep and heavy. He knew that the asset could never escape it and could be called to heel once he got close enough. In fact, he was counting on it.

He was old enough and wise enough of HYDRA to know that one’s usefulness only extended so far and once one reached the end of the rope, they were cut loose. If he failed to capture or worse control the Winter Soldier, HYDRA would leave him to a fate that would be long and painful. However, if he could drag that weapon back in, force another deeper bond then he could be one of the only people deployed to have the asset in the field. He would be one of a kind, but he would also enjoy the kind of missions that required the Winter Soldier. They had been a very good team.

He was healed enough that he could make general use of his hands beyond the gentle exercises to form up new calluses as his previous ones had been burnt or scraped away. He picked up the file that had been handed to him and gone over the Keller file as everyone liked to call it. He’d actually already looked through it, admiring the bloody efficiency of a highly skilled killer. Few things could stop a force like that, and he wished he knew what Janis had done.

_Gotten impatient, no doubt._ The fact that her jaw had been shattered with a punch was paired with what he knew of her of the few times they had met. She had to have gotten within range, which meant that she had to feel some kind of control for the situation. Maybe a command gone wrong? She was impatient but not stupid; she probably gave a command but had the Winter Soldier shaken it off? It was possible, unlikely but possible.

Her death on the other hand had been intentional. She had been made to suffer, albeit it was rather uncreative. He suspected that the asset had just wanted to watch the light fade from her eyes, and he had worked with the weapon enough to know that someone that sanded down to basics probably had trouble in the real world. The Winter Soldier wasn’t designed for the real world, a world of greedy power-hungry people that wasted too much time on attachments and how to get more of them. 

One thing that he had been informed about that tipped him off to how the asset might be struggling was because there had been a sighting that matched the Winter Soldier’s description going into the Smithsonian. Given that his prized had apparently saved the life of Steve Rogers, he knew that something was coming back and that meant only one thing.

Weakness.

The Winter Soldier was apparently incapable of it, and even better, the guy didn’t tolerate it. To do so meant a considerable restraint because without a handler to forbid action or set up commands to box off those bloody reactions, it was all up to the asset to control himself. That would take up a lot of time and energy. He knew that the distraction would leave moments open for exploitation, but that also would be terrible as well. The Winter Soldier he knew and trained with had been stripped of weakness, so to have to deal with that would pain him greatly. It also meant a relentless need for hard-line tactics on his part, and he had no problem using those to get his way, not for HYDRA anyway.

Brock read the statement of the firefighters who had entered the scene again, picking out that weakness so easily. There was no room for witnesses, not when the act itself had been committed. In D.C., the asset had been given the open-ended mission to be seen as much as was necessary to hunt down Rogers and Romanov because it wouldn’t matter once Insight was in the air. There would be so many bodies lining the streets that sightings of a gun-wielding masked man wouldn’t even matter; it could be swept away.

In that hotel room, those firefighters should have been eliminated quickly and effectively, but instead, the asset had left without so much as a shot fired. There should have been no hesitation, and there hadn’t been but for the wrong action. Protection of the innocent was beyond the Winter Soldier he knew, but that just meant that he could use it. He would too.

He closed the file in his lap and began to plot on how he was going to not only get back in action but turn this situation into one where he (and perhaps the asset) would benefit. If he recovered late and the Winter Soldier humanized again, the longer it would take him to train the asset back into shape. Being the only handler alive with any kind of notable impression, it left him in a very positive position, though he had no doubt a few of the old Russian handlers were being dug up if they were still functional. They’d be old, far older than him, but he had no idea if impressions tapered off over that much time.

His eyes lifted when the door to his private room came open and the ‘nurse’ from his first encounter with the Russian division walked into the room. She had said her name was Alenia Karamartov, but he didn’t actually believe her on that, but so far, he had no reason to question whatever alias she was going by. This little hovel was her playground, and she ran a tight ship, but she also seemed very intent on getting him up to speed. No doubt she wanted the credit for getting the Winter Soldier back in the game.

“Agent Rumlow, you will begin your physiotherapy tomorrow,” she said with the same heavy accent that was definitely not from the country her name was supposed to be from. He thought she might even be German. She also didn’t mince words. “Once you pass evaluation and you’re given a clean bill of health, you’ll be shipped back to the United States.”

“He on the move again?”

“No, and that’s why we need you there to draw the asset out,” Alenia said with a sternness to her brows that he took to mean she was frustrated that one man was evading them with all the technology available. “We suspect he is still in D.C., but other factions are on the move as well. “

Brock knew that some people not HYDRA knew the Winter Soldier was loose. Not all the old Soviets had been happy to lose the weapon and no doubt were forming up civilians to bring the asset in. Other science divisions also hungered for the knowledge of that kind of control. It was a free-for-all, and the Winter Soldier was the ultimate prize. It helped that the asset was relatively unknown so capturing him didn’t create a huge political situation like if Captain America fell off the map. People paid too much attention to that man and had a few too many powerful allies with the ability to hunt up information and be generally annoying.

“What about Rogers? You can’t tell me he’s not playing a hand in this,” he finally asked carefully. So far, information about Rogers hadn’t been forthright.

“Our last information confirmed he had returned to D.C. last week,” she said, frowning. “He’s been keeping a routine and hasn’t made outside contact or attempts to leave yet.”

Now that was interesting, but he knew why better than he thought Alenia did. Steve was a man of habit, but threw the rules when it suited the man’s idealized perceptions of the world. To be visible, to just continue on the routine of exercise, rounds of what was left of SHIELD, maybe even eating at set diners, Rogers was showing the world that things were settling but even better… the man was giving the Winter Soldier opportunity to come visiting.

“You’ve got bugs in Roger’s place?”

“We are aware of his movements.” Which was a yes, but also a no in its own way.

“Oh, you can’t keep a tracer on him?” He didn’t bother to hide his amusement, and he only smirked when he was leveled a glare. “Come on, I have to know what’s going on to help.”

“We have smarter people than you working on the situation. You are a handler and a soldier,” she reminded him coldly.

Brock snorted and leaned back in his nice comfy hospital bed. “So you have no bugs in his place?”

“No, we do not.”

“Do you have eyeballs on it?”

“Yes, of course. We are keeping tabs on the situation,” Alenia said with growing coldness in her voice. He knew it was meant to be a warning to lay off.

“I worked with Rogers for about two years,” Brock said conversationally, ignoring the dark look. “He’s a brilliant man, but he’s not up to date on technology. Yeah, he can work through it, even be excellent at the stuff we had on missions, but he couldn’t rewire a bomb.” He raised an eyebrow at Alenia, letting her make conclusions.

“Are you suggesting the asset is involved in his residence?”

“My good pet knew how to hide, knew how to sniff out even the smallest tech because he had to be unseen. If you can’t have bugs in there, the Winter Soldier is already there cleaning it up, keeping Roger’s safe and no doubt waiting for an opportunity in that empty head of his to make contact.” Brock knew Steve was a key to getting the asset humanized as well. Friendship that deep would not allow Rogers to just let it go and if the weapon was involved already, it was a two-way street.

“Well, I shall post more men.”

“Don’t bother, let them make contact. In fact, you should encourage it,” Brock said as he shifted on the bed and stretched.

“I personally don’t want Captain America involved. It will make for a messy situation when the extraction comes,” Alenia said coldly.

“Since I’m extracting the asset, you should let me worry about how to do it. Pull your men back, let the two meet up and keep watch from a safe distance,” he replied. “I’ll get the asset, but I need him to soften.”

Alenia instantly flared and it was like a blizzard just rolled into the room. “Soften? We don’t want the Winter Soldier soft.”

Brock smirked and shook his head. “Yes you do because his training is breaking apart already. You’re going to have to reprogram him regardless, so the softer he is, the easier he’ll be to control.” He suspected that with a softening asset, the more likely for a successful capture. It also made for a different kind of opportunity for this division. “Imagine a Winter Soldier who came willing to you, working for you because he saw the benefit of it. A weapon like that will give you more than you ever had before. Loyalty would bind him tighter than wiping him ever did; he might even be less erratic.”

There was silence as Alenia took his measure, but he knew his words had swayed her a little bit because the cold wasn’t quite so blistery. She would decide how the Winter Soldier would act once he managed to capture the asset, so she might just want the old way rather than this potential new one. “You have a bit of a silver tongue; I wasn’t informed of that.”

“Yeah well, there’s a lot that doesn’t translate over,” he replied with a smirk. “Just don’t forget that while you can read all the files you want, Pierce is dead, taking with him years of experience with the asset. I’m now the one that knew him best and how to handle him.”

He knew she wasn’t unaware of that fact, but he felt that he had to make it clear that he was working with them as much as for himself. There had never been a better weapon than the Winter Soldier, and the power had made him feel good to release it and watch that death dance and still be able to recall the asset at any time during it. He admitted that he was curious if he would have to take the asset by force or if he could get his weapon back willingly. What a novel concept.

“You haven’t said what you will do once you bring him in,” Alenia said after watching him in silence awhile. She was a cunning crow, and he didn’t entirely trust her.

“Train him, of course,” he replied as he lifted his arms and folded his hands very carefully behind his head, trying to look casual despite his discomfort. “I keep him out of the chair, but I get him back to his edge, and you still get what you want.”

“Any memories he has will conflict with his purpose,” she said very carefully.

“Maybe, but if I can get him sharpened up and he knows why he’s working with us, it might not be necessary. The chair was a last resort under Pierce, and it should stay that way. The asset worked best under Pierce because he had a different style; he reasoned with the weapon as much as he drove his heels to his ass,” Brock said with growing confidence. Alexander had been a good handler, but age had made the man shift priorities and have to groom someone else to take on the asset full time.

“Just how strongly did you bond to the Winter Soldier?”

“Are you asking if we were drinking buddies, or are you asking if I can still get him to roll over onto his back and wag his tail at me?” He narrowed his eyes in distaste for the other implication that she might be trying to drive at. He had heard rumours, but he had discounted them. Men who needed that kind of power deserved to be knifed because he knew they hadn’t acquired it willingly. It had to have been ordered.

Alenia regarded him for a long moment with the kind of measuring expression that Pierce had been famous for. She didn’t smile though; he wasn’t certain that she was capable of it without breaking her face in half. “Did you use sexual intercourse as a way to bond the asset? There are rumours after all.”

Brock wrinkled his nose as much as he could in distaste. “No, why would I want a loaded gun up my ass?” He felt a flare of anger on the Winter Soldier’s behalf, though he knew the asset could have been commanded to do that. “He’s a weapon with the face of a man. Yeah, he’s pretty to look at, but he’s a killer. My dealings with him were never warm and fuzzy; we were a team without weakness. I punished him when he needed it, but I praised him when he was good… and believe me, Karamartov, he was _very_ good. He was the best damn weapon I ever had the pleasure of handling.”

Perhaps he had said too much, but stuck in bed at the whims of others aware of what his mission was going to be cut his temper a little short. Normally he played nice, but the insinuation that he and the asset had taken a few rolls between the sheets pissed him off for some reason. Maybe because he knew a moment where the asset had needed it or maybe because he had seen in that same moment that he had wanted it but never took the opportunity. They had worked too long together, but he had enough pride in his work. The Winter Soldier was a fine weapon, not a lover, not to him. Now maybe there was more to it, but then, when he had worked a few missions with the asset alone, they had been something beyond that kind of intimacy. Or so he thought.

Clearly she saw that she had hit a nerve on him based on her razor smile. Too bad her face didn’t break in half like he had thought it would. “Perhaps you should consider becoming a weak link for him then, Agent Rumlow. Lord knows you have nothing else but the Winter Soldier now.”

Her comment hackled him because it rang with some truth. STRIKE was gone, HYDRA was barely holding on in the United States, and he was miles from anything that he knew. His days as a handler were all that were going to keep him in the game right now, and he needed to focus on that.

However, for her to indicate that he had to lower himself to becoming a weakness for the asset when he had always been a strength demeaned his purpose. He actually wondered if she knew what he did or how well he did it. Did she realize he could turn the asset on her with a flick of his fingers? That perhaps even now with reprogramming on the horizon for the Winter Soldier, the weapon still might listen to that command?

“You can stick that idea up that tight ass of yours,” he finally replied with, narrowing his eyes. “The asset and I are a team. He’s the weapon, and I’m the hand that guides him to where he needs to go. Don’t think it any other way, Alenia.” He had clearly underestimated her, but he would guard his back more now that she had shown some of her maneuvering on this front.

“You have no family, your team is dead, undoubtedly you have a few friends and maybe a few contacts,” Alenia replied coolly, and it was clear that she thought herself in control of this conversation. She must have looked deeper into him. “Let’s not be coy, Agent Rumlow. The Winter Soldier is all you have a solid hold on, and even that is debatable. Your best is to keep your hold on him, and your worst is to die by his hand.”

Brock only smirked and shook his head. “It’s not debatable. You no doubt read my mission reports; he never toed the line with me.”

“He attacked you on several missions,” she replied, seeming to press her advantage. On this, she had none.

“He malfunctioned on each of those attacks; I was sent in to clean up messes from other handlers who couldn’t keep it together,” he said, his lip curling in a sneer at the memory of two of them. “I’m the handler that cleans up the messes everyone else leaves behind.”

Alenia remained silent in the face of his words, and he could see her processing them. No doubt she was comparing them to what she had read about him, the missions and the Winter Soldier. She was taking his measure now that they had postured at each other quite thoroughly.

Brock shifted on the bed, sitting up and dropping his arms into his lap again. “I’ll even clean up the mess that Alexander Pierce left behind in his death. I heal, and I get the Winter Soldier.”

“And Rogers? If your plan is to soften the asset, what of him?”

He shrugged his shoulders slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the sensitive skin there against the cloth of his hospital gown. “I can’t well kill him, but I can use him against the asset. I’ll figure out how to shake him when I’ve got a better idea of the situation before I go in.”

She nodded, giving him that it seemed. Even she had to recognize that the situation was constantly changing, and when it came to Captain America, he would probably have to rely more on her cunning to go with his own. “It would be a great victory to neutralize or leash him too.”

Brock snorted in amusement, even if the very idea wasn’t funny at all. “You’d have to brain damage him to have any chance of that, and he heals too quickly. You know he didn’t stay in the hospital all that long after the Winter Soldier almost killed him. Neutralize might be the best you can do, holding his best bud as a way to control his actions.”

They both looked at one another and knew how difficult that was going to be. Steve Rogers wasn’t known to let that kind of intimidation hold for long and soon enough, old Captain America was going to come personally looking for the asset again. When Steve had been working with SHIELD it had been easier to direct the man, but like the Winter Soldier, Rogers was flapping in the breeze for the most part. That made him unpredictable and dangerous. He personally doubted he could appeal to the asset to chase Steve off either; he wasn’t certain that Rogers would accept that sort of chasing either.

“Well Agent Rumlow, we have our assignments cut out for us. We will consider this matter at another time,” Alenia said after checking a phone. She nodded at him and left without even a backwards glance. He couldn’t tell if they had made progress or had just set up the next battle between them.

***

Steve returned to his apartment with no more knowledge where Bucky was as he had the day or even week before. There had been no sightings, no more killings and no more opportunity to figure out where his friend might actually go. Sam had been wonderful moral support but also a realistic view point on the matter when he had gotten back.

The advice had been simple: Bucky was going to come to him and no amount of doe eyes on his part was going to spur that action on. His friend was going to come when Bucky was ready to. All he had to do was make himself available for that kind of contact, and he had taken that advice to heart and had kept his obvious looking to a bare minimum. He kept his presence obvious in what was shaping out of the ashes of SHIELD; he kept a routine at the gym; he walked pretty much everywhere and spent his time at home sketching when he could.

He also admitted that the return to a routine had been good for him as well. He had something to focus on again, missions to find some of the red. He’d even made contact with Fury for an update on Europe and gotten a few names of HYDRA agents that had probably come over looking to ease the burden on those HYDRA agents still exposed in the country. He had dedicated to getting to them and sending out teams to acquire or kill them off. It had been good for morale and solidifying people into a team again, though there was still a deep distrust in many.

He dumped his motorcycle keys into the bowl next to the door and slipped out of his shoes before he paused. The hairs on the back of his neck had risen in warning, but more than that, the apartment felt cooler than it should have been. His heaters weren’t on either, and the smell of fresh air was obvious enough to him to let him know that a window was open and had been for a few hours. He didn’t think anyone would have been stupid enough to leave a window open unless it was purposeful.

Slowly, he kept his vibranium shield in his right hand as he crept down the hallway towards the living room. He eased his head quickly around the corner and drew it back almost immediately after making his assessment. One of the windows was indeed open, the cool night air stirring the curtains. The rest of the living room looked as he had left it, though in closing his eyes and thinking about how he had left it made an item appear to be missing. Someone had moved or taken his sketchbook.

Steve shifted and stepped quickly around the corner, his shield up to protect the main of his bulk and to take any attack that might come. There was nothing, and a quick glance at the room showed that his sketchbook was indeed missing from where he had left it on the table. His charcoal remained untouched though. Everything else was as he had left it, but the feeling that someone had invaded his privacy had not abated.

He stepped deeper in the room, able to glance into the pass-through space to the kitchen. It was dark and cold like the rest of the place, as clean as he had left it. He would have moved to check the bedroom and the bathroom, but a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention instantly as he turned and set himself.

He couldn’t help but freeze at the sight of the Winter Soldier perched in the open window, metal arm glinting in the light and about to slip away. There was barely a glance at him, and he knew there was no way he could make it to the window in time to scoop his old friend out of the sill to haul Bucky back inside. There was too much distance, and he knew that Bucky had intended it that way.

“Wait,” he said before the other man could slip away into the night. The Winter Soldier froze in the window. “Please don’t go.”

He shifted and gently set his shield down on the floor, ignoring the soft noise that it made. He stepped away from it, baring his palms to his old friend and recognizing that this might be his only opportunity. It would be up to Bucky to actually take it in return. He hoped that enough time had gone passed where his friend would consider staying a little while even if all they did was watch each other in silence at opposite ends of the house.

For the most part, the Winter Soldier just watched him, frozen in the window, eyes hidden mostly with the fluttering curtain and dark hair. No doubt sizing up the situation, though if that was all, it was taking more time than he would have thought. “Would you like something to drink?”

There was a twitch across those muscled shoulders, and it was no doubt one of the few offers Bucky had received in that manner. Slowly, as if unfolding and with no less deadly grace, his friend shifted and stepped out of the window sill to stand next to it, still somewhat hidden by the curtain.

Finally, after what seemed like an endless amount of time, a soft strong voice replied in Russian, _”Yes._

It was only because he and Tony had been brushing up on the language that he understood, but more than that, he grasped the significance. The file had said that the Winter Soldier had been rebuilt on Russian commands first with a mix of German and then converting it to English later on. He supposed that it would be natural for his friend to respond as much in Russian as in English. It also gave him a bit of an idea on Bucky’s mental state.

“Alright,” Steve said and gave a friendly smile. “I have water, orange juice, milk and… I might have wine. Your choice.”

He shifted his weight, forcing himself to move into to the kitchen even though it might be opportunity for Bucky to just leap out the window. He opened the fridge door, bathing the kitchen in light from it and turned his head to spy Bucky peering through the pass-through space. He hadn’t even heard his friend move.

“What will it be, Bucky?”

There as an almost uncomfortable silence. “Juice,” came the reply and this time in English.

Steve reached in and grabbed the jug of juice and moved away from the fridge to get two glasses, both of which he filled halfway. He made certain to move as if he wasn’t nervous or excited for this as he put the jug back into the fridge and then grasped the glasses. With the pass through between them, he slipped one glass over to within easy reach.

He took a careful sip of the sweet juice, watching Bucky over the rim and noting that he received pretty much the same treatment. That was until his shaggy friend seemed to taste the juice and then it was gone in two swallows and the empty glass lowered to set on the counter again. That was… not quite the reaction he had expected. It was still good in his mind.

“It’s nice to see you again,” he said carefully before taking another larger drink from his glass. He wasn’t actually thirsty, but he knew sharing something like this might warm Bucky to stay a bit longer. “Do you want more juice?”

The Winter Soldier watched him, and the intensity of that gaze should have worried him but didn’t. He gave the other man a smile instead, encouraging and hopeful for an answer. Maybe that was one of the reasons that Bucky reached out and pushed the empty glass to him with a strange sort of politeness. “Yes please,” came the reply.

Steve returned to the fridge and simply brought the entire jug out with him, refilling the glass near the brim this time and adding more to his own afterward. By the time that he had finished filling his glass, he paused when he noticed the other glass returned empty. His gaze flicked up to peer at the shadowed soldier on the other side. “When was the last time you ate or drank anything?”

“Earlier today.” The reply was grudging and soft. “I drink from public fountains mostly.”

“And a good night’s sleep?” Steve was honestly curious how Bucky was making out. What safe house had his friend settled in?

“Maybe a week ago,” the Winter Soldier replied. His friend didn’t look tired, but that was to be expected in some regards.

Steve smiled a bit and filled up the empty glass with juice and slid it with one finger back to Bucky. Those leather clad fingers closed on the glass and he felt Bucky’s fingers brush on his, and he knew it was purposeful contact. It showed a level of trust. Then the glass was gone, and he watched with amusement when the man in front of him drank it down without a single pause for breath. He hadn’t remembered Bucky being that way, yet there was only fondness in his gaze.

“You can stay the night if you like,” he finally murmured as he took the glass back and went to refill it before catching the shake from the other man. “You can sleep in my bed or on the couch. I’ll provide dinner.” He paused before very carefully adding, “all you have to do is shine my shoes… maybe take out the trash.”

He was given a startled look, but he simply smiled honestly at his friend, hoping for even a grudging recall of some kind. There was nothing at first and then slowly, the man in front of him softened slightly, just at the edges. The wall sounded with the noise of metal settling against it, and it was the most relaxed he had ever seen his friend in seventy years.

“Steve,” came the soft call, and there were a steel overlaying vulnerability.

“Yeah, Buck,” he murmured, peering through the pass through at his friend’s shadowed face.

“I’m empty, Steve.” It should have been a warning, but he instead felt a surge of pleasure at this show of trust and vulnerability. “I have nothing.”

“You have me,” he replied carefully, not willing to push too hard. “I’ll always be here, like old times.”

There was a silence which wasn’t actually oppressive or awkward. It was instead contemplative, and he felt the weight of his friend’s gaze on him. He wondered if Bucky was again taking his measure or sizing him up. He also sort of wondered if he should be standing around with a half-full jug of juice in the dark, but it seemed as natural as being measured at this point. He didn’t mind either. There was something nice and warm about just being this close even if the distance was still such a gap between them.

“I don’t remember.” The words had a strange finality.

Steve set the jug down on the counter, and he slowly eased around the entrance of the kitchen to be on the same side as his friend. He wasn’t surprised to be facing Bucky rather than staring at his friend’s back. Since the Potomac and the fall of the Insight helicarriers, this was the closest that they had been to each other. He could have reached out and touched Bucky, but he didn’t because he knew that was pushing too far, too fast.

“Would you like to talk about what you do remember?” He left it open ended on purpose.

“I remember what I read,” the Winter Soldier replied slowly. “The Smithsonian provided knowledge, but there was nothing inside of me. It was words, not feelings or memories of my own. It’s like reading about someone else’s life.”

That had been the longest string of words that he had heard from Bucky. They only made him more determined to help, to bring this man back to some semblance of normalcy. “It might just take time.”

“It might not come back at all,” Bucky rebutted coldly.

Steve shrugged his shoulders because, while it hurt, he wanted to tell himself that it didn’t matter. It did, but he told himself severely that they could make new memories. “It might not, no. You’ve been damaged purposefully and chronically.”

There was a shift of weight from the man in front of him, and while there were no signs of panic of discomfort, he knew that the topic was heading quickly into dangerous territory. This wasn’t even the way that he wanted this conversation to go. However, he wasn’t about to discount if talking about this was what his friend needed.

“The emptiness won’t go away,” Bucky replied, and Steve recognized that as the problem. The lack of memories probably didn’t bother his friend; why would it? Amnesia and that kind of continual mental damage didn’t really leave anything to be desired for one who had nothing to compare it to. It was the cold dark emptiness that seemed to bother this man who HYDRA had used as a weapon for so long.

“Why don’t we get you something to eat then? That will at least fill your belly,” Steve said, flashing an encouraging smile. “When did you eat a good meal last?”

“I… don’t know.” He knew that drinking out of public fountains was one thing, but acquiring food was not as easy. “I had an apple earlier today.”

He didn’t ask where Bucky had acquired an apple, suspecting he knew that thievery was not above his friend anymore. A man had to eat, but he suspected that if he turned on a light, he’d see that Bucky had lost weight. HYDRA no doubt provided food, but now that source was gone. The world as a whole was very different, the buying food was much the same thankfully. He supposed he should be thankful that Bucky had come to him now rather than when malnourishment set in.

He gestured with his head towards the kitchen and eased back into it, this time turning on a light so that he could grab a pan and set it to the stove. He made certain not to look back to see that Bucky was following, but he was aware of the Winter Soldier lurking curiously at the entrance. “Let’s make you some eggs and toast,” he said conversationally. It was quick, easy and light enough on the stomach where he didn’t think they would have a problem.

So he cooked and Bucky watched in silence, though he noted his friend was drawn more into the kitchen when the smell of cooking food began to permeate the area. The silence was almost comfortable, and he let it continue as he worked, adding only a little butter to the toast and setting the eggs before he added a bit of cheese and some carrots just to balance things out. If the Winter Soldier’s eyes left the plate at all once it was almost set, he didn’t see it.

Slowly, he extended it to the shaggy man in front of him and then held out a knife and a fork. “Table is around the other side. I’ll get you some more juice.”

“You’re… not eating?” The question came quietly, yet he heard a guarded tone to it as well.

“No, I ate before I came home,” he replied ushering the other man out of the kitchen to sit down while he returned for more juice. He put the jug back into the fridge, and he wondered if he was going to come around and find an empty plate by the time he got there. “I need to grocery shop actually. I’d offer you more, but it will be much the same as what I already gave you.”

Steve found Bucky seated in the single chair that kept his friend’s back protected by a corner and there was something so humanized about watching the other man eat quietly and so very politely. It was a nostalgic flash of the old Bucky, and he silently seated himself opposite, just admiring the sight before him. While his friend didn’t hurry, there was an urgency to the eating. It tightened his smile, but it also made him just that little bit more protective.

He didn’t disturb the meal by plying his friend with questions or conversation, and he found his gaze straying a little more often to that metal hand. It moved and worked like Bucky’s flesh one, and there was a fluidity of the motions that suggested his friend was long used to it, probably even didn’t even notice the difference. He found that just watching such normal motions made it easy to accept that the prosthetic was all part of the friend who sat before him.

“Thank you.” The reply was soft and wasn’t particularly flooded with any emotion, but there was some kind of gratitude there.

“You’re welcome, Buck.” The soft crunch of carrots sounded in his quiet apartment, and he simply leaned his chin against a hand and watched. He didn’t bother to hide the fondness that he had for the man in front of him or the relief that after weeks that this was finally happening. “Do you want some more eggs or toast?”

The Winter Soldier seemed to consider the offer seriously between chewing on carrot sticks before shaking a negative. He suspected it was less due to the man being full and more to the idea that someone who ate too much after a kind of starvation probably wouldn’t keep it down. He accepted it without a fight on the matter. “You call me ‘Bucky’.”

Steve perked a bit at the statement, the corner of his lips rising fondly. “Yeah, it’s your nickname, had it since we were kids.”

“How… did I come by it?”

“You told me it was because you never really liked being named after a President,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “Most people called you that who knew you, except the nuns and the teachers at school. You’ve always been ‘Bucky’ or ‘Buck’ to me.” He sat back in his chair, watching as his friend stared at the empty plate but without a doubt listening intently. “It was a shortened play on your middle name, Buchanan.”

It might have seemed obvious to him, but for someone who read words and had no association, he wasn’t so certain that was true. He watched the careful neutrality, hoping perhaps that some association could be made between the nickname and the story that he told. He wanted to say more, but at the same time, he recognized that any kind of pushing on his part would make things worse not better. He forced himself to repeat what Sam said about letting Bucky come to him, not the other way around. There would come a time when he could push, but it wasn’t now.

“Your work is very good,” Bucky finally said carefully, blue eyes darting towards the sketchbook.

Steve noted that his friend skimmed topics rather than dig deep into them. He wondered if that was a side-effect of all that mental modification or if this was how Bucky was going to be. “Ah well, it keeps me out of trouble,” he said conversationally. “It helps to calm my mind down before bed. Of course, if I get into it, sketching can have the opposite effect, but I’m alright with less sleep now and again.”

Bucky regarded him from between strands of dark hair. “There were several of me.” It almost sounded like an accusation.

He just gave another affectionate smile. “Yeah, there are. You used to pose for me a long time ago, so I guess I find it easy to sketch you now when I don’t have a picture or particular topic.”

The idea seemed so novel that he watched the other man blink and then those dark eyebrows draw together in a flicker of confusion. There was something in the way that those muscled shoulders shivered that made him wonder if something had come back or if a ghost of emotion had come into play. He waited and realized belatedly that he was holding his breath.

The Winter Soldier shifted in the chair and rose so quickly that he had lifted a hand slightly as if to protect himself. “Sketch me.” It wasn’t a request; it was an order, cold and calculated.

“Alright,” Steve agreed and rose to his feet to move off to retrieve the book that had obviously been thumbed through. He grabbed his charcoals as well and turned to find the other man lurking close by, waiting for some instruction on how this process was done. He gestured to the couch. “Just sit and relax, okay? I’ll take the chair over there.”

They moved to their respective positions. He set his charcoals on right arm of the chair and flipped through his book until he found a blank page and smoothed a hand over it. Upon looking up, he found Bucky seated almost casually, though the way that the man’s feet were poised and how his hands were settled indicated that he was ready for action at a moment’s notice. The stare that was leveled at him sent a shiver down his spine because he remembered it well from the Charlie-helicarrier. It was cold and intimidating, promising unheard of violence and nothing in the way of mercy.

Steve offered another smile, trying to ease that stare a bit before he took up a piece of charcoal and began to sketch. He knew without having to say anything that Bucky would stay perfectly still, only the occasional blink or shift of eyes or the rise and fall of his friend’s chest the only indication that the other man was even alive. He worked in silence beyond the gentle scratch of charcoal against the paper, his gaze flicking up regularly to take in the shape of his friend’s jaw or the fall of that dark hair. He concentrated most on Bucky’s eyes though, wanting to capture something of that hard gaze.

He sketched for over an hour, taking his time more to enjoy the company and perhaps ease Bucky into the idea of staying for longer. He finally set it down and put away his charcoal, letting the head and shoulder’s sketch be slightly visible. He immediately noticed that Bucky’s eyes flicked towards it, but at the angle the man was at the sketch wouldn’t give a good sense of what he had drawn.

He shifted and offered the book to his friend. It was the metal hand that captured it and took it from his grip, and he folded his hands behind his head as his work was inspected. He didn’t particularly care for compliments or criticism since this was all recreation anyway. It wasn’t like he was going to show off his work outside of his apartment.

“You’re very good,” came the soft words.

“Thanks, Buck. It means a lot coming from you.” It was the second time his friend had complimented his skills in a single evening, and he did appreciate it.

“You like my eyes,” Bucky said softly.

Steve couldn’t help a soft chuckle leaving his lips. “Your baby blues, yes. The amount of hearts you could win with those and a well-timed smile was a skill I never knew how to even try to master myself. You always had the nicest shade of blue to your eyes.” He wanted it to sound a compliment in return, but he could see the other man struggled with the imagery.

“I haven’t smiled in a very long time.” It hadn’t been the track that Steve had been hoping to take from that. Bucky didn’t seem to notice his slight grimace though and instead traced metal fingers over the charcoal. “Even during the war, there were smiles.”

“Ah well, we just need to give you a reason to smile again,” Steve said and heaved himself easily out of the chair. He didn’t move to take the sketchbook back and instead gestured for Bucky to follow him, since it didn’t seem to him that his friend was eager to jump out the window and end their first warm meet-up. He didn’t want it to end either.

He didn’t make a scene about anything, knowing better now that he had also taken his friend’s measure. He simple padded off through his small apartment and into his bedroom, feeling the presence of the other man since hearing Bucky’s tread was even difficult for him and his hearing was enhanced. He walked over to the dresser in the corner and rooted through until he found an old t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, returning to offer them to Bucky.

“You, my friend, are getting a good night’s sleep. We can talk some more in the morning, okay?” While he didn’t want to end anything between them, he knew that taking things slow was best for his friend. A good meal, a restful sleep and perhaps they could enjoy a day together.

“What are those for?” The obvious confusion brought another fond look to his face.

“You can’t sleep in your uniform.”

“I can’t?” The concept was met with suspicion. “I do it all the time.”

Steve pushed the spare clothing into Bucky’s flesh hand. “My house, my rules. Besides, we should wash out your uniform to clean it up.”

“But there are no pockets in these.”

“For what?”

“My weapons.”

The sheer idea that Bucky needed weapons at all for any kind of protection was laughable, and Steve chuckled in amusement. It didn’t seem that his friend shared his mirth, but he didn’t mind at all. “You can sleep with them next to you.”

He watched with continued amusement as his friend removed weapons, some of which weren’t visible but apparently were there nonetheless. They all formed a pile, most of which were nasty looking knives that he remembered all too well, but he moved to change into something to wear for bed so as not to watch Bucky too closely. He wore much the same thing, though instead of boxers a pair of loose fitting pants.

He turned to dump his old clothing in the laundry bin and froze as he watched Bucky grasp the t-shirt and begin to pull it on. It was the first time he had seen his friend’s back and worse, the obvious scarring that showed around where flesh gave way to metal. He had expected something similar he supposed, but seeing it for the first time before it disappeared under the swath of material was still unsettling for him. That right there was the true face of HYDRA but also a physical show of some of what Bucky had gone through.

“Why are you staring at me?”

He hadn’t realized he still was, but he snapped back and shrugged. “It’s just…” he trailed off, not certain what to say. He decided on the truth because he had nothing else to offer. “That’s the first time I’ve seen how your metal arm is attached. It… must have been painful.”

Bucky wore a guarded expression. “Does it make you disgusted?”

“No,” he replied with another shrug. “That arm is part of you, like the old one had been. You use it just the same, and it doesn’t bother or disgust me. However, the scarring…”

“I don’t remember the pain,” his friend said simply, as if to alleviate his concern. “It happened before I have my memories, and even then, the few flashes I have indicate it had to be done.” It was so nonchalant, so accepting that he relaxed. “I was made whole with it. My arm was not to be saved.”

Steve nodded, letting the topic go because it was really as far as they could go with it. Instead, he sat on the bed and watched as Bucky slowly gathered up the old clothing and put it in the laundry hamper. The current clothing didn’t fit well, but it was clean and dry and Bucky didn’t seem to care that the boxers were barely able to cling to those hips. It was an amusing change given how they had grown up.

“Where do you want to sleep, Buck?”

“The floor,” came the reply as the Winter Soldier moved to find a spot to sit down and lean against the wall. It didn’t look particularly comfortable. Long muscled legs stretched out and Bucky’s arms piled loosely in his friend’s lap.

“Would you like a blanket or a pillow?” He suspected the Winter Soldier was actually rather comfortable, but he didn’t think he could be in that position.

“No, this is fine,” Bucky replied and shifted slightly so that those shoulders and head could lean easily against the wall.

Steve nodded, wanting to insist on at least putting a blanket close, but he relented and pulled his legs up onto the bed and lay on his side. He hesitated for a few moments before reaching out and turning off the light to cast the room in darkness. There was still enough light to allow him to see dark shapes once his eyes adjusted, and he easily picked out the shape of Bucky down on the floor, unmoving.

While he didn’t know the exact moment that his friend settled into sleep, he knew it wasn’t long. There was no real indication, but the room went a different kind of quiet. He smiled and lay his head down on his pillow, savouring this moment and found it easy to settle into sleep because of it. Despite the bed and everything else going on in his life, he slept better than he had in months.

When he woke, Steve froze at the sight of an empty room. No Bucky, no knives, no sign the Winter Soldier had even fallen asleep in his room save one thing. His sketchbook sat where Bucky had been the night before, open to the page where he had drawn his friend last night, and he had to rise from his bed to see the small dark star sketched at the bottom corner of the page. It wasn’t the sign he had hoped it would be, but it was something.

Bucky would come back. Maybe not tonight and maybe not in a week, but his friend would return to spent more time with him in the future. For Steve, it meant a lot, meant they could try at a future together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for any comments and kudos made.


	5. A Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: There is violence and non-detailed insinuation of disemboweling a person.

***

Brock didn’t work that often with the Winter Soldier and certainly not as many times as he liked. However, over the first six years, he was trained heavily in what his future would be. He was an asset himself, learning and mastering things to make him useful to HYDRA as he slowly climbed up the ranks in both HYDRA and SHIELD. He worked hard, took his bumps without complaint, was friendly with those he needed to be, rubbed elbows with those that would see him go higher, but he never stopped working to improve himself when it came to martial skill and weapons training.

In that time, Alexander Pierce finished the rise into higher political stations, leaving behind SHIELD entirely. They saw each other less, though there were a few times when he had been asked for specifically for security detail on one of those overseas elbow-rubbing retreats where important people showed up to eat expensive meals, stay in expensive hotels and posture at each other. Security detail didn’t have anything aside from posturing, as guards and patrols measured each other. Some he knew belonged to HYDRA like him, but they were all careful to never do more than nod at each other.

He ran a tight detail always, and his team responded well to the restraint. He met Jack Rollins around that time, and they had the same kind of outlook on their jobs and the things that they did. Rollins might have actually been one of the few men Brock would consider a friend after a few years, but he never ever would have hesitated to put a bullet in the man’s head if it was ordered or if it became necessary. He knew Jack felt the same for him, and that made easy ribbing, smirks and posturing at each other all the more entertaining.

Brock had been preparing to sleep after going over the building plans and itinerary for the following day when there was a soft knock at his door. He rose to answer it but a note slipped under before he made it, and he frowned as he bent and picked it up, reading the few words scrawled on the paper. Why did Pierce want to meet now? Something had to be wrong.

He sighed and strapped on his pistol and hid a few knives on his person before he slipped out of his hotel room and up to where Alexander happened to be staying. He was admitted without even a glance by the man stationed outside, and he padded into the lush apartment. While it was an expensive place, he saw that few things were being used. Pierce had always been a conservative man, using what was necessary but not making any excuse to rack up a hefty bill, just another sign of the strict order that his boss kept and expected of others.

No one was in the living room, but he noted plenty of papers and documents though didn’t stop to investigate. He moved to the bedroom and found Pierce dressed rather casually for a man who was fast becoming one of the most important men in the United States. He stepped inside and shut the door at the gesture from his boss, walking carefully into the room.

“You wanted to see me,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. He didn’t need that much sleep to be sharp and functional in the morning.

“The asset is on the move,” Alexander replied with a blithe smile, the older man easily taking his measure. “He was released from his handler, and he should be completing the mission within the hour.”

Brock somehow kept himself from frowning. What was so important that he needed to be informed of this? The asset obviously was on mission with a handler already, and he actually hadn’t worked with the weapon in almost a year. He eyed Pierce suspiciously but decided it was better to say nothing, since he couldn’t figure out what this was about in the first place.

Alexander shifted and folded those aging hands over the man’s belly, watching him as he watched his superior. The silence reigned for almost five minutes before a far less political smile appeared on Pierce’s face. “You are to retrieve the asset.”

“Sir?”

“His handler and three members of the team were eliminated at the source of dispatch,” Pierce said, and there was clearly no feeling of loss for those deaths. “You’re being deployed to be at the rendezvous to take the asset in. Someone else will be there, the fifth and last member of that team. Eliminate him.”

Brock nodded his head. “Me or the asset?”

“I’ll leave the choice to you. It’s been awhile since you’ve had command of the Winter Soldier, so you may want to see how your commands are taken after so long, hmm?” The thought had crossed his mind, but now he felt like he was potentially walking into a trap. “As long as he’s eliminated, Brock.”

“Yes sir,” he replied with a nod, waiting for details on where he had to go. Something nagged at him as he watched his superior, but he held his tongue nonetheless.

Pierce reached over to the small table next to the bed and pulled out a sheet of paper that was neatly folded. It was given to him, and upon unfolding it, he found his mission objectives written and a small map of where he was supposed to go. It was an area of town that was close by, leaving him enough time to suit up and get to the area in question before the asset made an appearance. Like all missions, it was well-planned as far as time went, and he knew by that that Pierce had a direct hand in its creation.

However, one aspect wasn’t detailed on the paper. “When will the extraction team come to pick up the asset?”

“Our political situation here is not as steady as it seems, Agent Rumlow,” Pierce said, and he suddenly realized he was potentially being up on stand-by. “Peace talks are going well enough with the Europeans, but there is a lot of money going places that it shouldn’t. The economy is apparently starting to get shaky, and that’s the way we want it. There are a few members of the European Union which had an ear to our cause and others that haven’t shown whether or not they can be swayed.”

“My security detail then?” He didn’t need to be told he was out of the game when it came to posturing at other trained officers. His duty was apparently shifting potentially to baby-sitting.

“Agent Rollins will cover. He needs an opportunity to show me if he can be trusted as well,” Alexander said simply. “You are to keep the asset at the rendezvous point until you are contacted. It shouldn’t be more than two days. You will either be extracted or given a mission depending on how things turn out.”

Brock nodded his head, not entirely happy about that but aware that it was necessary. He supposed having some alone time with the asset was better than tucking his thumbs in his belt loops. “I’ll go and await further instruction then.”

“Good, dismissed,” Alexander said with a nod. He turned to leave. “Oh Brock, one last thing.” There was something in Pierce’s voice that raised his hackles instantly. “Regardless of your orders, you’re going to let the asset hurt you.”

Brock couldn’t help but stare at Pierce. “How badly?”

“At least a good shinier, but you might want to work through some broken ribs,” Alexander said like the man was just talking about the weather. “No gunshot wounds, but you can avoid all weapon injuries if you’d prefer.”

Great, he was going to let the asset get close enough to him with a knife to do some damage. He bristled, but he knew better than to talk back at this point. Orders were orders, but he liked to know what he did to earn this kind of punishment in the first place. He met Alexander’s gaze, his jaw working before he scratched his cheek with his fingers.

“Is this discipline?” He just had to ask, somehow keeping his tone without hostility. It was difficult though.

“No, it is trust, Brock.”

“Trust?”

“The asset could destroy you with a single misplaced action on his part. He could even kill you with a purposeful one under orders,” Alexander said, the man’s eyes hard and intense. “The Winter Soldier has no mercy, but he will be held in check by you. If you give him too much reign, he’ll kill you. If you give him too little, he’ll be unable to function under the order you’ve been given.”

“What does that have to do with trust?” Sometimes he wondered if Alexander practiced all the speeches.

“You aren’t afraid of him, but I need you to trust him.” That was a stupid order; Brock didn’t trust anyone as far as he could throw them. “Better, I need him to trust you to a degree. He might be a weapon in your hand; he might even be wiped clean of memories, but your impression was strong. Better, you’ve never had trouble on a mission with him. That’s rare.”

He frowned and looked at his mission objectives again. He didn’t see the order to get his ass kicked on it, but he knew it was there. “If I do this, I want more missions with the Winter Soldier.”

Alexander issued a soft chuckle. “Trust, Agent Rumlow.”

It was as much of a dismissal as he was going to get, and he turned to leave immediately. He returned to his room, burned the pieces of paper after going over them one more time and tucked the small map into his back pocket. He decided not to put on his bullet proof vest since he was apparently going to get roughed up tonight. What was that bullshit about trust anyway?

He thought about that the entire way to the lavished apartment that was apparently the rendezvous point. He stepped inside with the other agent, a small mousy looking man who had small nervous eyes that flicked around almost constantly. The man had no problem with someone else being there and in fact looked relieved to hear that he was there to help with the asset. The guy was probably an informant or a hacker technician to monitor the locations of targets and teams, hence the nervousness.

He set his hands on his hips as he regarded the open balcony window. A light breeze fluttered the expensive drapes and cooled the room, and he wondered if lowering the temperature was purposeful to keep the asset calm. The Winter Soldier liked the cooler temperatures after all. “Tell me when the asset arrives,” he said and moved to look around the apartment.

It was a top suite, and tastefully made up. He didn’t know who lived here, and he didn’t really care. The bedroom was not a place he would choose to stay in, though the four-poster bed looked like it was made for a king. It actually might have been, but he didn’t bother with the details. He looked out the windows for signs that this place was being watched or what he could see from it. Six floors up, there was plenty of room to enjoy a view. 

Brock opened a window and leaned out, looking up towards the roof and then across the way to a different building. They were more apartments, though only five floors high. His gaze flicked to the left at a glint out of the corner of his eye, and he didn’t even question it as he issue a soft whistle into the night, no louder than the late night sirens or traffic.

The Winter Soldier was supposed to go to the balcony, to slip inside and settle with the last team member and then no doubt be extracted. The handler was supposed to be here too, but the man was dead and Brock in his place. He changed the orders and the mission to suit him, and he smirked when the Winter Soldier eased down from the roof after a few minutes of just a cool breeze.

The asset looked the same as he remembered, though that metal arm that grasped the sill of the window looked upgraded. Strong legs were braced against the wall under the window in show of strength and control. The clothing was even the same as he remembered from almost a year ago, and the familiar cold gaze sizing him up brought on a cocky smirk.

“Still come when you’re called, huh?” Brock reached out, grasping the back of the asset’s neck in a gesture so familiar to them both in a way of greeting that it was near second nature despite how few times they worked together. “In,” he ordered and the weapon squeezed by him into the bedroom. The brush of their bodies was about as intimate as they ever got with each other.

He waited a few minutes, gazing out in the night, listening to sirens in the distance before he withdrew and shut the window, unable to shake the feeling something was up though he didn’t know what. He turned and found the asset lurking nearby, though he noted those blue eyes were flicking to the other part of the apartment where soft sounds of the other man could be heard.

Brock didn’t waste his time looking the asset over, but instead, he asked only for the mission report. It was given in the same way, bland objective details of a successful killing and playing it like the woman in question had been killed by her boyfriend. It went without problems and the asset had returned to him obediently at the set time. The asset was actually about four minutes early, which was good in his mind. He would have praised the weapon in his usual way, but both of them looked as the mousy looking man appeared in the doorway.

“Oh, he made it back. I thought you were talking to yourself for a minute.” Brock only realized he had no idea what the man’s name was. He actually didn’t care. A mission was a mission.

It was just too bad the carpets in the bedroom were white or he would have let the asset at the man already. He instead shrugged his shoulders. “No other handler to call him in, and I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time to see him.”

“Brody said he never sees the Winter Soldier coming in.”

Ah, so Brody was the other handler who was probably being nibbled on by fish at this point. He shrugged again and gestured for them to leave the bedroom, letting his mousy target walk away into the main living room where a laptop was now set up. There were nice hardwoods out here, though the couches were white which was a bit of a pity. Maybe they should do this in the bathroom then.

Brock felt the asset haunting his steps as he walked, pausing when the little man wandered away to the bathroom. He stepped over to the computer to look at the screen, but it was a program that he didn’t recognize. It was some kind of computer geek one, though he noted a few others were opened. The guy was probably just going to sit down at work, which made him wonder why the team was being eliminated.

The toilet flushed and he simply drifted away to the balcony to shut the doors to limit sound and the breeze coming in. He locked it for good measure, and he said nothing when then nervous man returned to the computer to work, though there were more than a few glances at the asset who stood still and silent in a corner of the room. It was a neutral position, one he was familiar with that left the Winter Soldier primed but out of the way. In a team of five, no doubt they would joke around or something while the asset stayed locked and loaded for command if something went wrong.

“Hey man, when is extraction time?” Brock stretched his arms above his head and walked over to flop down onto the couch on the opposite end of his mousy ‘friend’.

“Oh-one-hundred.”

He glanced at the clock over the fireplace and shrugged. That left roughly thirty minutes to play with before it became obvious that there would be no extraction. “What are you working on?”

“Supply requisition and data transfer. You wouldn’t be interested.” No, he wouldn’t, except he wondered after the data transfer.

“Are you doing work about the European Economic Convention?”

“Yes, I’m gathering numbers and crunching them.” There was been a hesitated pause before that reply, and it set Brock on high alert. So there was an eliminated team that was transferring data in and around a meeting that had the high potential to shape the world?

Brock turned his head as if to gaze out of the balcony window, but his eye flicked to the asset who shifted in the corner. He sighed heavily and dropped an arm over the side of the couch to dangle, giving silent signals with his hand and fingers for the Winter Soldier. He wasn’t certain if military hand signals would work as well as a verbal order, but he shouldn’t have worried at all.

The weapon tensed and drifted silently away from the corner, moving to the couch. He glanced over to spy his nervous coworker who was typing away but paused a moment before the asset leapt the couch and took the man by the throat. It was like watching a cat seize a mouse, and if the asset clenched that metal hand, the man’s neck would have snapped like a twig.

There was barely a struggle because their mousy friend could only kick and choke. Brock immediately went for the computer, pulling it over to him and shifting through the open files. It was encrypted and in code that he didn’t understand save the single term _’Winter Soldier’_ and some kind of time, and he knew suddenly what was going on here, why a team would be eliminated no questions asked.

“You fucking sold information,” he hissed, snapping his head to the dangling man who was kicking lamely at the asset’s legs. The weapon didn’t even deign to notice. “Who did you sell it to?”

The man couldn’t actually talk and was slowly turning red. “Hold him by his scruff,” he ordered and the asset immediately shifted grip. “Talk or you don’t want to know what I can get him to do to you.”

The nervous man hung like a limp rag in the weapon’s steel grip and shuddered violently. “There are a few old regimes that would pay highly for information. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Even if I got a message through, Brody isn’t here to make the Winter Soldier stand down.”

Brock looked at the asset who stood calm like a statue, unmoved by the words. “You’re telling me that a handler brought his team in to sell information about the Winter Soldier and what… HYDRA was just going to let you all walk away?”

“N-no, we were going to be extracted too. The price included the Winter Soldier and Brody, but we all had to be involved to make it work.” So they weren’t just selling information… they were literally selling the Winter Soldier. Suddenly the little man looked at him with hopeful earnest. “You could go, you know. You’re a handler; I know where we’re supposed to go to drop off the goods.” 

How many political regimes would pay any amount of their country’s wealth to get their hands on a perfect assassin? The Middle East, Russia, and even some of the countries in South America and Africa would kill for someone like the Winter Soldier and a handler designed to keep the asset in line. There was a freedom to that because there were no other handlers to step in the way, and he didn’t think the weapon cared about anything about who the order was to kill.

Of course, HYDRA had infiltrated so many governments and countries that it was impossible to stay clean and clear. There was no coming back from that kind of betrayal, and as Brody had experienced, there was no telling when a mission was going to turn into a graveyard.

“Which party bought you guys?”

“I don’t know, somewhere in the Middle East, but it could just be a relay point. Brody knew more. Are you… will you consider going? It would be worth your while?” And save this little slime’s skin in the process? Yeah right.

He barked a laugh as he unplugged the laptop, shut down all the programs and turned it off before he stood and walked over to the most pathetic piece of shit of a man he had ever seen. “Why would I? I already own the Winter Soldier, and HYDRA owns me. We all work in the parameters of our orders, but some people clearly are too greedy.”

“B-but…!”

“Break his lower jaw,” he ordered the Winter Soldier. There was a distinct squeak of fear before a cry of muffled pain came as the asset did as ordered. “Break his fingers,” he added, curling a lip in disgust at the free tears running down the other man’s face. Little muffled pained shouts came as each finger was broken, and it was too bad when the asshole passed out. The asset didn’t seem to notice and went on breaking until all ten where mangled.

Brock was disgusted by that show of weakness, that someone could lose their way for money so easily when they would be hunted down to the ends of the earth. He walked over and cut down one of the expensive drapes and then gestured to the asset. The Winter Soldier followed him to the bathroom still holding the limp man by the scruff, and he had no mercy as he made a noose with the drape and then ordered the asset to tie it up to a beam in the apartment after breaking a hole into the ceiling.

He left it loose enough that the little man could still stand for now and looked at the asset standing next to him. “What do you think, hmm? You and me together all the time doing missions and watching each other’s back. It wouldn’t be so bad, right?” It was a stupid notion because the asset wasn’t a man and eventually the programming would corrupt. Still, the freedom was alluring in its own way, but it was an illusion. No man was free.

For the asset’s part, there was no reaction to his musing. He doubted the weapon even had an opinion on the matter, that empty head just following orders. Conversation was never easy to come by with the asset, and while some handlers would chatter away, he knew it was pointless. There was no bond in talking to a creature that had nothing to think on any given topic. The asset was empty save for predator.

No, there were other ways to bond with something as powerful as the Winter Soldier.

“Knife,” Brock said, holding out a hand and receiving one of the asset’s butchery tools. He had his own of course, but he examined the serrated blade until their new victim trembled and woke enough to sob brokenly. “There are no prisoners with HYDRA. Being a part of it, you should know that. Order comes through pain for us all, but you haven’t received your dose for what you’ve done.”

The little man shuddered and only tried to cry more loudly. It was rather pathetic, and he looked at the Winter Soldier whose nostrils were slightly flared with the scent of fear and weakness. There was no order to attack so the asset simply stood rigid and primed at his side, but there was an eager predatory look that the weapon didn’t bother to disguise.

Even if Pierce hadn’t ordered this man dead, he would have done it anyway. The selling of information was bad enough, but this pathetic display of begging was the worst. As someone who had grown up rough in the streets where one took care of themselves and either found the strength to live or died like a dog, it went against any grain of himself. He could tell the Winter Soldier was eager to end this as well, eager to tear into someone who acted every bit as wounded prey did. He doubted the mousy man even cared at this point.

“Stand here,” he suddenly ordered the asset, drawing the weapon’s attention away from the dangling man in front of them. When the asset was settled where he directed, he pressed the knife into the Winter Soldier’s right hand before his own moved to cradle the outside of the asset’s hand. That alone distracted his charge. “Settle,” he ordered when the shifting became an annoyance to the moment.

Brock rose to his toes a little, hooking his chin over the asset’s right shoulder, his breath tickling some of the dark curtain of hair near his face. His chest pressed flush to the weapon in front of him as he slowly guided their hands towards the weeping man in front of them. He felt the moment when the asset puzzled out his intention and that was when the body in front of him relaxed into a natural position and was more than eager to lead the way with the serrated blade.

“Easy now, we take our time, do it together,” he whispered into the asset’s ear, and the first moment the knife met with clothing and then flesh, they were united in purpose. They worked slowly, the agonized gurgling and twitching only enhancing the experience as they cut into flesh, spread it open, delicately worked through muscle, slicing ligaments. They took their time, and he sometimes had to shift his hand to accommodate a different angle to the knife, but the asset moved with him as they shared this time together as no one else probably had. United in purpose, fixed on the exploration, eager for the next motion that they had together…

They left the little mouse of a man in hanging pieces, blood pooling at the bottom of the tub around the entrails that had been dragged there too. By the end of the hour of their work, Brock’s fingers were almost laced with that of the asset, their breathing similar in their rapid puffs of excitement, his rough cheek pressed against the Winter Soldier’s neck and his body as flush as it could to that of the cooler body in front of his. The asset was strong and solid in front of him, but there was something in the way that the other man’s weight settled against him that made him keenly aware of everything they had done.

Blood was still drying on their united hands holding the knife, and his nostrils were infected with the rising smell of dead meat, blood, and the kind of smell that came with a disemboweled body. He made no effort to move, not trusting himself even if his legs ached from being set to his toes for so long, but there were no complaints as he drank in not only the sight but the situation. It was a euphoria that made him idly wonder if he needed to check and change his trousers.

Brock had never felt closer to the Winter Soldier than in that moment. They had not just killed together; they had taken apart a man by feeding on the urges of one another, never competing or controlling but united in exploration and purpose. It was hard to swallow, and he felt like he had run miles, but his body sung with pleasure that he hadn’t realized he could even feel.

Slowly, he felt the asset’s face turn to regard him, and the gesture caused him to draw his head back from where it had rested against the weapon’s neck. Their gazes met, locked together as they studied one another in a new light. For the first time, Brock realized the difference between the Winter Soldier being both a man and a forged weapon. He suddenly appreciated the difference.

He also knew why Pierce was so protective of the Winter Soldier’s training, why he was here to begin with. Somehow, the old man would know that the step between building trust didn’t come from violence between them but this kind of moment right here. Could he risk trusting something like this or worse have the asset trust him? It was different on missions, always would be; that kind of trust was different from what they were sharing here.

He shifted, feeling the warm brush of air against his lips as the asset breathed but also the pain of stiff muscles held in a position they weren’t used to. Their gazes were still locked together, their hands covered with blood and holding both the knife and one another. Something flickered in the Winter Soldier’s blue eyes, a shadow he couldn’t identify before lips brushed on his own, tentative but soft. If he hadn’t been so keenly focused on their proximity, he might not have even noticed the caress that soft.

It was in realizing that the asset _needed_ this, that he _wanted_ it too that jarred him out of the moment. The spell was broken, but he knew jerking away in disgust would hurt them both. Their defenses were down, so there was no room for rash rejection. He couldn’t even say he was actually disgusted or if it was a ghost of what he thought he should feel.

He instead raised his unoccupied hand, setting it to the back of the asset’s neck and massaged as he slowly withdrew his face, watching as the weapon followed for a moment and then apparently reconsidered. He groaned pointedly as he eased his chin off of the taller man’s shoulder, setting his weight back on the flat of his feet, his fingers still soothing at the weapon’s neck even as the asset watched him carefully, expression perfectly blank save those blue eyes which were measuring his response.

“We better clean up. I want to show you something in the bedroom,” he murmured, and there was a flicker of interest and curiosity from the other. Neither were reactions he was used to seeing, but he filed it away to consider it later.

He pried his fingers off of the knife hilt and off of the asset’s one, moving to the sink to grab the soap bar and wash the blood off. Soon enough, the weapon joined him, using the soap when he handed it to the weapon and gesturing to follow his lead. He grabbed a cloth and wet it, tipping the Winter Soldier’s face from side to side as he reached up and wiped away blood spatters, ignoring how the weapon leaned into his touch. What the hell was wrong with this picture?

Brock forced himself to ignore it, though he knew he should take the weapon to task. He didn’t, not yet at least because he needed the distraction for pain later. Once he had his charge cleaned up, he dumped the wash cloth into the tub with what was left of target and moved from the bathroom. He didn’t need to look to know that the Winter Soldier haunted his steps to the bedroom.

He shut the door, locking it with a flip of his fingers and found the asset watching him curiously. He stepped over to the fine heavy table in the room and removed his weapons and tugged off his boots. “Remove your weapons and your boots. We don’t want to mark up the carpet, right?”

The pile of weapons from the Winter Soldier was far more significant than his own. He watched the asset work until his order had been followed and they faced each other.

“We’re going to spar,” Brock said simply, smirking as if he were confident about his chances. “You’re to pull your punches to bruises and minor lacerations. No broken bones, understood?”

The Winter Soldier shifted, no doubt not used to facing a sparring partner in a bedroom but nodded at the instructions. There was still a keenness that hadn’t left from the bathroom incident, but he forced the weapon to focus on this instead, a physical contest of strength, of pain which they were no doubt very much used to. Maybe it would be a comfort as well as a distraction.

And in the end, Brock did exactly what Pierce had ordered him to do, which also meant his blood messed the white carpets. The asset beat him with an ease that should have been shameful, and he eventually ended up holding his bloody nose while laid out on the bed, nursing a rapidly rising headache, bruised ribs and no doubt a sprained ankle. His nose throbbed too much to care even if the asset had thankfully not broken it, but he’d still have some nice shiners in a few hours.

The fingers of his left hand combed through dark hair as the asset lay curled next to him, head pillowed against his chest. Not exactly according to plan, but by now, he was used to the fact that he and the weapon cuddled like some sick and disgusting morbid couple. Whatever, this was fine; they were a team.

“My name is Brock Rumlow,” he said suddenly into the silence.

At first, the Winter Soldier was silent. Then, “…Brock,” came soft and assured from the head laid on his chest. “I don’t have a name.”

“I know,” he replied. “Weapons don’t have names, just designations or codes.”

The asset said nothing in reply to that, and he didn’t expect one. No, they just lay there spread out on the bed, his fingers stroking through long dark hair like this was all just a normal experience when tonight had been anything but normal. He should have been horrified and angry about it, but he wasn’t.

And that’s what disgusted him most of all.

***

The warm water swirled around his bare feet before ending up down the drain pipe and beyond his reach. He watched it without actually seeing or caring for it, his mind elsewhere as it generally was when he was alone to think in such close confines. The shower was one of the few places where there was an odd kind of security. No one could sneak up on him here after all.

The water flowed over his body, caressing his skin as much as cleaning it. He was slick with the stuff, recently clean from washing but now just standing in the flow of water. His dark hair clung to his cheeks and his neck, directing a little more flow of the water as it rained down upon him where he stood entirely motionless save for his breathing. Occasionally, he would blink the gathered droplets from his eyelashes, and he let his fingers flex at his sides.

He didn’t know how long he had stood there for, but the water was beginning to cool and he finally lifted his head to turn off the tap. He stood dripping water and feeling the long lines of it sliding over his skin, curving around ridges of muscle and the swell of bone. He shook his head, sending water everywhere from his hair as it flew and then settled back against his face, and he knew there was no point staying in the little sanctuary.

Stepping out, he grabbed a towel and worked it over his skin, drying himself off without much thought about it. He never put much thought into methodical and almost mechanical action, just going through the motions as he always had until he was rubbing his hair with more vigor that he probably should have. He made it draw some pain to his scalp before stopping, letting the sensation die. The need to feel alive wasn’t something that came with pain and death after all. Steve was re-educating him on that.

He glanced at the mirror, sighting himself in it as he wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped closer to the sink. He investigated himself in the mirror, tilting his head this way and that to spot all the angles before he reached up and ran his flesh fingers over his cheek and down his neck, feeling the stubble that was growing there. He’d have to remove it today he decided.

First, he combed his hair, pushing it behind his ears even as it continued to start to drip water down his bare chest again. He shaved after that, feeling the scrape of the blades against his skin despite the crème on it, perhaps sensing it better than others. He had never cut himself, working with a precision despite the contours of his face, and he paused only at the sound of Steve’s voice passing on the other side of the door, obviously talking to someone. He returned to his chosen activity, removing facial hair and staring at his reflection in the mirror.

Still empty, he thought. The hottest water only scalded him, washed away more layers of dirt and skin but failed to do more than that. It was up to him to find something to fill the void.

Rumlow shaved him, he suddenly remembered. The impression faze had been deep rooted inside of him, under personality, under order, a bond as strong as a chick to its mother in some regards. That’s how he had heard it described anyway, that the bond was never so strong but the theory of it was meant for that. Brock had been the first and only one to have a blade that close to his throat and face, a steady firm hand always. Clean orders. Firm punishment but stoic praise when it was earned.

A hand on the back of his neck, warm, firm and welcome regardless of how brief…

He hissed and threw the razor into the tub harshly in a childish gesture, but he didn’t regret it even as his hands clenched on the outer edge of the sink. He bowed his head, breathing hard through his nose and forcing himself to listen to that sound only, the feel of air being drawn into his lungs and then expelled again. He struggled to maintain the calm he needed for such straying thoughts, staring at the drain like a snake might suddenly jump out to bite his face.

“Bucky?” The voice was brought with a soft knock at the door.

“I’m fine,” he told the friend on the other side of the door. He didn’t want to explain the thrown razor, his rigid muscles or the emotion that went too deep inside of him. He didn’t let himself identify emotion, not yet.

He needed to find Brock Rumlow and skin the man alive before he sensitized again. The rest of HYDRA was faceless to him, an entity that he would find the pieces of and squeeze the life out of eventually, but he knew based on his straying thoughts that Rumlow was a danger to him. The impression on him had run deep, and now felt like a gaping wound that was raw and just ready and waiting to be exploited. With Rumlow dead though, the wound would heal as it had healed over when he had been told the Alexander Pierce was dead. Those two men, Pierce and Rumlow, had dug deeply with their methods, probably as deep as Dmitri had before the man had changed and he had mercifully torn the handler to pieces. That… was a very long time ago, but wounds like that on a man’s soul were scars he could review when he was most vulnerable.

The door to the bathroom opened and Steve stood there in the doorway, leaning on the frame and just watching him. His shoulders were still hunched as his hands gripped the sink, but there were no words for him, just the steady feel of gaze on his bare skin. Steve had a way of looking into him and seeing when he struggled, watching him with no judgment, no guilt, no pining need to try to salve the scars on him. Steve was just there, a support structure he hadn’t known he had needed so badly until he had come back.

“I have to find him, Steve,” he hissed between clenched teeth.

“You need to put on some clothes and come have some breakfast too,” the taller man said in return, steering the conversation away from that topic. It was out of respect for him, he knew, because Steve knew he wasn’t ready to speak at length about this.

He lifted his head and stare at the mirror, seeing the haunted expression for a moment before he pushed it away, burying his hurt and his straying thoughts for now. He stood and grabbed a hand towel, wiping off the rest of the shaving crème and sighing heavily. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen, but holler if you need anything,” Steve replied, warmth flooding the man’s voice. Warmth for him, warmth he knew would stand the test of time.

He didn’t think that he didn’t deserve it either, but emotion was still very hard to grapple with. He drew a deep breath and forced himself to pull on clothing. He had left behind his vest, but the kelvar enforced cargo pants were his last sort of lifeline to his old existence. He hadn’t convinced himself to give them up yet, and he hadn’t been pressured to do so. Thus, he wore them, but he pulled on a grey t-shirt and pulled his hair back into a messy tail at the base of his neck. He also hadn’t convinced himself to cut it yet, but he was working through that as well.

He accepted that he had a name, though mentally, he didn’t refer to himself as anything yet. The last three weeks had passed by gently, though it had taken him a week to return after he had first stepped back into Steve’s life. He had watched nonetheless, and returning a second time had been easier. After that, he came at least once a day, generally in the evenings and they spent time together. The companionship was greatly appreciated.

Steve wanted badly to step in and help him, to force him to open up on what he knew and what he might need in the future, but his friend had gradually accepted that he needed time. He suspected that Steve had come to understand that he wasn’t coming to be saved from his past, himself, or the lack of memories. He came to stand on his own, to have a chance to save himself and accept the reality of his situation and his actions of the past. It was in that acceptance that he felt himself opening up and healing.

The topic of Rumlow was not entirely an unspoken one, but it was like a putrid splinter at the back of his mind at all times. There were times when his attention was drawn to its presence, but he had learned to push it away. Time, he told himself. The splinter would be pushed from him or encapsulated to be ignored if given enough time.

Drawn from the bathroom, he followed his nose to the kitchen where Steve was setting out a meal for them both. It was heavy with protein, smelled good, and it would fill his empty belly well. Steve tolerated well to him coming for meals, even encouraged it. He was suspicious of the smile that his friend wore when he ate, though he had no memory to follow it to something of the past. He was gaining weight again, putting back what he lost and finding a great sense of normal with the simple pleasure of eating. And it was a pleasure for him. Aside from politeness, there was no expectation to perform when eating and it was a companionship that he had most with Steve.

So they sat and ate almost wordlessly, glancing at each other. Like every morning, Steve would attempt to steal from his plate, but he parried the fork with his own and almost shoved the prongs of his into his friend’s throat. The deadly calm held them a moment, as it always did, and then Steve’s hand would close over his wrist, and his grip would relax. It wasn’t a cue he told himself, but the itch of the idea nagged at him.

Yet, he and Steve were never at war with each other. The attempt to steal from him produced a basic response to guard his resources, but his friend seemed to find it amusing and a challenge. It was too bad that their strength tended to bend more forks than it preserved. It was a friendly challenge, one that matched the occasional wrestling match Steve had pulled him into the last few days, and when he realized it was not actually a battle but a friendly sort of tussling, he had eased away from his instinct to defeat his enemy.

“You’ve been quiet today,” Steve observed after swallowing some juice. It was an opening to bring up the topic again if he wanted to press it.

“I’ve just been thinking,” he replied softly, pushing some of his eggs around his plate.

“I hope you didn’t hurt yourself in the process.” Steve just smiled in the face of his glare. “You know you can talk to me about anything. My door is always open, but I won’t push until you’re ready.”

He knew that, and the fact it was open and without judgment was why he returned so often. This had become a very safe place for him. Steve was very safe, but he also knew that his friend didn’t understand him either. It was something someone had to experience to know the real pain of it all, why he struggled as he did.

“You met Alexander Pierce before he died?” He looked up from his eggs to peer at Steve.

“Yeah, he was head of the World Security Council at the time,” his friend answered carefully. “I didn’t know him well though, just met him and had a brief difference in opinion. From what I saw of him, he was very effective at his job, but knowing who he worked for… I can’t say I liked him.”

The Winter Soldier nodded his head, finding the answer what he expected. He folded his hands on the table behind the plate of half-eaten food and stared at the contents for a few moments. “He had a way about him, a business approach to everything.” His eyes flicked up to stare at Steve across the table. “HYDRA knew me to be one of the greatest weapons that it had, but Pierced reasoned a weapon was only as good as the hand on the trigger.”

There was a momentary flicker of discomfort in Steve’s eyes, but the man’s face somehow remained impassive. The silence reigned between them for a few minutes, and he felt no pressure to have a reply for anything that he said. “He pulled the trigger a lot, didn’t he?”

“Almost thirty years,” he murmured softly. “He wasn’t much different when I first met him.”

“You remember that?”

He twitched in his seat and finally closed his eyes because he couldn’t hide behind the curtain of his hair as it was still tied away from his face. His metal hand pressed against the middle of his chest. “Few things I remember, but I don’t have to with him. He was a hard but fair trigger-man; he never let his position go to his head, never over-extended his power. He was always certain, but not in a cocky way. There is security in certainty, knowing that few things controllable by men can go wrong. Pierce was like that, secure, certain, in control. I don’t remember a lot of things, but I know here.”

Steve returned to eating, no doubt buying time to process the information that he was revealing. He didn’t normally speak much on anything, least of all anything that had happened to him, but… the splinter was working deeper in his mind and it was impossible to ignore. He wondered what his friend was thinking about because the impression of Alexander Pierce was no doubt based on a single conversation. He couldn’t remember most of his orders by Pierce, but the sound of the man’s voice had once been a greeting to waking: calm, certain, and in complete control.

“Is that what having a handler was like?” The question came grudging but curious.

He turned his head to look towards the window, groping after an answer to that question. What was it like having a handler? “No, just Pierce,” he finally decided. “Every handler was different, I think. They brought something individual to the table. Some were good, some not so good.”

“What made a handler not so good?” Steve was a good friend, asking like they were talking about the weather when he could see his friend clenching a hand on that fork.

He should have seen the question coming, and he looked up towards the ceiling, his eyebrows drawing together as he thought. “Fear,” he said softly after a moment. “And arrogance.” He suddenly bowed his head. “Someone once said ‘you don’t fear a knife that is sheathed and secured and you don’t fear a gun you’ve already taken the bullet cartridge out of’. They were right; a handler’s greatest weapon is control but not letting it get out of hand.” He suddenly clenched his hands, ruining the fork in his left. “Direct and command and I will only bring my best to the playing field.”

“Bucky…” If the angry look of determination was any indication, he had probably spoken too much. Steve began to say something but decided not to after a second and then they stared at each other.

Slowly, they returned to their meals and finished them because neither he nor Steve were the type to waste anything even in a world of plenty. He cleared the dishes away because it was a chore he found easy and so normal that he had taken to it. He put them away into the dishwasher and paused only briefly at the feel of Steve’s eyes on him through the pass-through.

“Do you want to hit the gym or go the park?”

“Don’t you have to work today?”

Steve snorted in amusement. “It’s Saturday, Buck.”

“So?”

“So I think I can have a day off on a weekend.” This working on weekdays was still not something he was entirely used to, but Steve only found his confusion amusing. “I’ll give you a few hours of my day, but just because we’re friends, okay?”

He frowned but accepted the teasing, shuffling his shoulders as he put the last plate into the dishwasher. He stood and came around the other side again, narrowly avoiding a swinging punch for his nose, but he knew that rolling around on the floor wouldn’t make them leave the apartment. He rather liked wandering outside with Steve, so he only curled a lip at his friend and stomped off to put on his boots instead. He’d fight the man later when it was his advantage.

Steve joined him at the entrance and they companionably put on their shoes, but he stood first and slipped into a light jacket regardless of the heat outside because he no longer brazenly let his metal arm show while in public. Of course, there was opportunity as Steve stood, and he slammed the other man back into the wall, careful not to do damage but tapping his fingers against the man’s throat. “Dead.”

He received a frown that transformed into a smile before a punch came at his midsection. He slipped away only because the other man let him go, and he stepped out of the door to revel in the freedom of doing as he pleased.

The streets were not that busy given the relatively early hour and the fact it was a weekend. The people who were about kept to themselves, though Steve had a habit of nodding and wishing everyone at ‘good morning’. The city was not anything special, least of all this area of town which was primarily residential with small shops to provide places for people to meet up, buy coffee and move about their day. The lack of the usual business hustle and bustle eased him into his usual confident walk, the kind that meant he had somewhere to go.

“Gym or park?”

“We can’t do both?” Steve had said he would get a few hours after all.

His friend chuckled softly and companionably threw an arm around his shoulders. It filled him with something that he couldn’t explain, like the sensation was right but misplaced, though he didn’t know why. “Fine, which do you want to do first?”

“The gym,” he replied.

“That eager to get beat up?” Steve had never ever mastered a wicked grin apparently because the attempt was more smile than grin. “I’ll go easy on you today.”

He narrowed his eyes, but his expression didn’t change to show any kind of warning. “I am carrying knives, you realize.”

“You do realize that you can’t knife people in boxing?”

He curled a lip, shoving his metal elbow into Steve’s ribs. “You realize the only rule I play is using every aspect of my skills to have you laying at my feet defeated?”

His challenge was met with a chuckle before Steve’s hand found his messy ponytail and tugged on it. He twisted his head aside and shoved the other man as playfully as he could, which was still a very effective launch. Steve landed it without stumbling because his friend was on his level physically, and they sized each other up before the blond man smiled and trotted back over to him. There was no give or weakness in Steve’s approach or stance; Steve had never provoked his primal viciousness.

Instead, his friend purposefully shouldered into him, and he had to shoulder back to prevent himself from being driven right off the sidewalk. He slipped around in front, suddenly setting a booted foot to Steve’s chest. His friend stopped and peered at him.

“Race you to the gym,” he said and gave a hard shove to send Steve backwards.

Childish games were not something that he played, let alone challenged, but they were something that Steve brought back to him. It had no memory, but there was a flicker of emotion. It was enough to prompt the action, to experience what it was like to be on the other side of the posturing and challenges that Steve so often tried to edge onto him, to ease him up.

His foot came down as he twisted and pushed off the pavement to start the run. They were generally equally matched physically, but Steve had a longer stride than he did, which meant he had to work harder to chew up the same amount of distance. His ears picked up the sound of pursuit, the soft chuckle of a return of the challenge set as they swung around the corner and bolted across the street. He narrowly missed a car, but Steve went around the other side as they came to the next sidewalk.

He allowed Steve to catch up to him, their shoulders grinding against each other, but his friend had a fatal flaw in all such challenges: he was fair. The Winter Soldier was not fair because life wasn’t fair, nor was there any mercy for anyone who stood against him. They still sprinted, eating up the ground with long strides as people moved out of their way, laughing at the apparent boyish antics as they moved.

As they came up to a narrow alleyway, he suddenly shoved his shoulder into Steve who was on the inside track. The blond man hadn’t expected the gesture and stumbled off balance into the alleyway, hitting the wall with an audible sound, and for the first time, he smirked at his clear victory.

He curved the corner, sighting the gym as he moved to cover the last of the distance. His eyes flicked to the opposite side of the street and caught on two men walking deep in conversation moving opposite to his direction. People walked and talked all the time, but something inside of him froze in a twist of obedience that almost laid him out on the pavement.

Brock Rumlow walked down the street, waving a hand in obvious disagreement to something the other man said. The other man was so unimportant though, assessed at below a threat to him that it was easy to focus entirely on the target that had haunted him for months. Yet, even at the distance, he knew Rumlow was not the same, and there was a different swagger to the ex-STRIKE commander’s gait. For anyone who didn’t know Brock like he did, it would probably not be obvious.

The Winter Soldier turned and zeroed in on Rumlow, slipping between parked cars and sliding across the hood of a moving one without even looking back as the car horn sounded. His feet hit the ground running as he closed the distance, his right hand falling to the hidden sheathe of the knife, and he realized belatedly that some of his hair had come loose from his tail. He came up and over a parked car for the most direct line at Rumlow, but if the man even noticed death closing in, there was no indication.

A few meters from his prize, a strong arm locked around his chest and another found its way around his hips, literally hauling him to a stop. Steve’s grip was like steel on his body, stopping his deadly charge as he snarled with a feralness that apparently was enough to stop the two men who had been his intended targets. He surged against Steve’s hold, but he felt the other man dragging him back, heard urgent words against his ear, but they were just a soft buzzing compared to the blood pounding in his veins.

Slowly, Brock turned to face him, and their eyes met. Something inside of him was instantly on alert, waiting with a baited sort of breath for a cue, a command, an order. There was nothing, which felt so odd that it stung.

“Rumlow,” he shouted, barely registering that he gave voice to the name when he hadn’t to any other handler.

“Well, well, Captain America out for a jog?” After the initial look, Brock barely glanced at him, but those hands shifted and thumbs hooked into belt loops. The gesture was casual, but the dismissal was felt as strongly as a punch to his stomach. It was only when he snarled and surged against Steve’s tight grip that Brock even deigned to notice him again. “Keeping out of trouble, Rogers?”

The question, so casual, so dismissive took the fight to a whole new level. He fought more against being relegated to just a normal occurrence, chaffed with being brushed off, and worse, he felt himself determined to earn the man’s attention on a level he recognized and associated with old times. It was suddenly less about Brock’s sudden appearance after so long searching but more the sheer idea that he had passed out of the man’s keen gaze, relegated to… he didn’t know what, but he warred against it.

“Enough, Bucky!” Steve’s words only penetrated because of their sharpness. “And get lost, Rumlow.”

Brock just stood there watching them struggle, super-soldier against super-soldier. The usual cocksure attitude was there, but there was something different, something that came with only cunning and guile. Their eyes met, and he knew in a small dark place inside of himself to fear. He belonged to this man in a way that had little to do with a sense of property and something far deeper and dangerous. He would stiffen and fall to his knees if the command was given even if it was momentary. 

The realization must have showed because Brock smiled at him. It was one of those arrogant certain smiles, the kind that came when the handler knew that the upper card dealt was one for a winning hand.

“Keep your dog muzzled, Rogers,” Brock said with that same smile.

“I’m not his,” he snarled, straining in the hold that was dragging him back slowly.

“You aren’t?” The question hung in a telling way, and the weight of the words struck him harder than Brock had ever hit him. “Oh right… you’re a free man now, right?” One of Rumlow’s hands shifted and lifted, and he felt himself freeze, felt himself leave the ground as Steve lifted his weight, but Brock only rubbed a hand through close-cropped hair. “Well, muzzle him anyway. Rabid dogs get put down.”

The Winter Soldier strained, his muscles bunching as he was literally hauled off by the taller man, and he hissed in aggravation when Brock only slapped the other man on the shoulder and the pair turned and walked away. The dismissal again hit a mark he hadn’t even known that he had, and he let Steve carry him away despite his eyes making the attempt to bore a hole in the back of Rumlow’s head until the man was out of his sight.

He knew the feeling of disappointment and on its heels came that strange sense of fear. The winning hand had been played, and he had fallen into the bluff. Worse, he wanted those emotions to drain away, to leave him the blankness he was used to.

He sagged when he was suddenly shoved up against a wall in an alley, not even certain if it was the same alley that he had sent Steve into earlier. It didn’t matter. He turned his eyes up to stare at Steve before he pressed his head forward and buried it into the man’s shoulder. It was only then that he felt Steve relax slightly.

“…Bucky?”

“I’m empty,” he whispered with a strange hoarseness to his voice, but his statement wasn’t true. He couldn’t remember feeling the lie there before. What did it mean? “I want to be empty, Steve.”

“We should go back to my place,” Steve said without the option of refusing. He knew no other option because that apartment was the only safe place he knew now. “This isn’t the place to talk, and… yeah, come on, back to the apartment, Bucky.”

He allowed himself to be directed back to the place they had left only a handful of minutes before, in a daze he couldn’t explain much less work his way out of. He reviewed the entire incident, the finer details with a strange detached objectiveness that had really only been his when he was with HYDRA. That meeting was opposite to what he had expected, and that required it to be reviewed and the details picked apart so he could be prepared in the future.

First and foremost was Brock Rumlow as alive but not whole. There had been some evident scarring, no doubt carry over from when he had seen the man in the hospital. He knew that those injuries, that kind of recovery meant that HYDRA had provided some help in that regard. It also meant that Brock had trained very hard to reach that level of physical endurance again. That kind of wounding took months of recovery.

It also reinforced the notion that Rumlow was a survivor. It dredged up things about the man that he had only recently considered in the same light as Pierce earlier in the day. For all the damage, physical and otherwise, Brock had always survived, always somehow came out stronger and cockier because of it. The man had a knack for dodging death like he had a knack for dodging bullets. There was certainly a game in play, but he knew that Brock had a plan to survive it all.

Third and most importantly was the deliberate dismissal. It was so deliberate that he should have shaken it off, but he couldn’t and that was the larger problem. The more he tried to shake it off, the deeper that old splinter lodged in sensitive areas of his mind. He didn’t like the idea that he would have answered a call or that he had been brushed to the side in such a way. Brock had always kept an interest in him in the same way that Pierce had, a designated motivation to be a good-trigger man and to curb unwanted behaviour. They had been a team without weakness.

He had been at his best for those two, but Pierce’s time as his trigger finger had begun to set as Rumlow’s had fully risen. Alexander had seen it that night in the man’s house, the surprise at his appearance called in by another. No doubt Pierce knew that Rumlow had sent word, and that he had reacted on that order rather than wait for the call directly from the older handler. Either way, he had gone and been at his best for Rumlow, and the dismissal stung still.

He didn’t realize they had made it back to the apartment until Steve was pushing him down to the couch. He blinked his eyes and looked around, taking it all in and finding a wave of confusion as to why he was here and not… where? Where would he go? His eyes clenched shut and he slowly leaned forward to rub his face with the heel of his hand.

The sound of Steve sitting down nearby on the couch should have been a comfort, but he wasn’t certain what was happening. It felt like a bad dream suddenly.

“Was he like Pierce to you?” The question was soft, but it sounded as if Steve as just shouted right into his ear.

“No,” he replied hoarsely. He swallowed hard and shook his head a bit. “Maybe a little but different. He was always…”

“Confident,” Steve said in the prevailing silence. 

He slowly lifted his face from his hands and looked at Steve, his jaw working slowly. “He shaved me,” he said softly, though he doubted the significance would make an impact on Steve. “No one but an enemy put any kind of blade near my face or throat. He just…” he struggled in a vagueness of the memory trying to materialize, “grabbed my chin, told me to stay and shaved away all my stubble like it was just another day in the office. He wasn’t afraid of me.”

Steve shifted next to him, though if it was because of his first memory of Brock or something else, he didn’t know. “I knew him for about two years, and you’re right, I never saw him show fear to anything. That confidence of survival and tactics bled into the team.”

“Why did you stop me?” They both knew that he could have ended Rumlow in a few seconds, just a few more steps. He liked to think that, even if he knew better.

“Because he was there for you to fall into a trap he set,” Steve said reasonably.

“I could have slit his throat in a second,” he replied to defend himself.

“You and I both know that he had something planned if you got in close enough, and that anything Rumlow did to you in that kind of close quarter situation would have done damage.” He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand again, aware it was true. The dismissal had been jarring enough, but in close, he knew something would have happened. “None of the other handlers presented themselves to you. That’s enough for me to know you had to be held back from falling into whatever he planned.”

He closed his eyes, almost feeling the ghost of strong fingers closing on the back of his neck, stroking and massaging subtly like way back then. Their meetings might have been infrequent, but they had been potent enough to make him recognize that the impression that Brock had made on him had seeped deep into his programming, his training, and even his flesh to a degree. They had been the best team, one without limitations and fear… just as Brock had promised him.

“I’m going to find him and kill him,” he said very softly, lifting his face from his hand. “He will always be a danger to me as long as he’s alive.”

“If he catches you…”

“A man has to sleep,” he replied coldly, looking at Steve sitting next to him with steel in his expression and voice. “He is the last chain linking me to HYDRA. He has to be eliminated.”

Steve nodded, accepting his words with a sigh. His friend didn’t offer to help, and it was the only relief to the situation and what he would have to do. “Alright, but you’re still staying the night, right?”

“Your priorities are messed up,” he said, but his expression smoothed and softened.

“Well, you did best me in a sprint and I didn’t think anyone could do that,” Steve said with an affectionate shove at his shoulder. “I think I bruised the wall as much as it bruised me though.”

“You’ll still heal faster.”

“You’re such a punk.” Steve always relegated back to their old name calling banter at some point during most of their recent conversations. It was probably because talking was becoming easier for him.

“Jerk,” he replied in an automatic sort of way, an age old rebuttal he had learned early in their conversations.

He didn’t move away when Steve’s hand grasped the elastic holding his hair back and tugged it loose. It was pointless anyway given that half of his hair had fallen out of it, but the cool press of his damp hair was a reminder of old times. His friend’s hand caught his head lightly and tugged him until he relented and allowed himself to lay down with his head against the other man’s thigh. It was childish really to be that way, two grown men as they were.

As Steve’s fingers combed through his hair in an attempt to soothe him, he simply wished that he was empty again. The conflict inside of him was terrible, deep and dark. Worse, he remembered laying his head down against a different thigh and being perfectly comfortable to spend hours there.

The Winter Soldier vowed to kill Brock Rumlow slowly. His metal fingers clenched where they were pressed into the couch cushion, and despite not feeling empty anymore, he felt like the vow was empty. Was he already muzzled? Was his fall already determined?

***

“You really didn’t feel any fear that he was going to gut you like a fish in the streets there?”

It was the pompus ass that he was paired with asking just for the sake of filling the silence with some asinine idea that no one, least of all him, cared about. He wanted to ignore the question entirely, but the guy was persistent about needling for information in such a way that Brock sometimes just wanted to answer just to shut the guy up for a little while.

Jake Minou was a HYDRA sleeper agent, and he had joined up recently enough that the guy hadn’t appeared on the list that SHIELD had uncovered. The guy wasn’t all that smart, but the man had built a reputation for being very social, and Jake was probably only being an ass towards him because it was orders from the top to do so. His new ‘partner’ was also an extremely good actor, which made earlier today go off without a hitch and that was the point.

“How come you don’t fear him? He looked pretty frightening.”

“I didn’t see you shitting your pants,” Brock replied with a shake of his head as his fingers worked over the sidearm he was cleaning and putting back together.

“I wasn’t a threat to him, now was I? He had eyes only for you,” Jake replied with a little smile. He hated those smiles, like some kid who thought they knew more than they actually did. It made him want to smash the guy.

Brock shrugged as he fit his gun back together, only doing so because it was one of the few things to do while in hiding for now. They had another mission, but he was intent on ignoring it for a few days. The Winter Soldier would be on high alert and searching after all, sniffing for signs of his trail. This was a critical time in his mind, and he had to let the asset feel the burn of his absence and the full impact of his indifference. Only then would the weapon be more pliable and the chinks in that well-programmed armour would be so openly exposed for him to exploit more easily.

Though, even he had to admit that it had been hard not to call the Winter Soldier to heel, especially when he could see that the asset would come. It was so natural for him to do just that as it was natural for the asset to follow his cues. He had used his hands very specifically, watching the way those blue eyes followed poised for action if he just gestured a certain way. If Rogers hadn’t been there, he could have brought the asset in easily, and both of them knew it. That would make the greater impact for later.

“Hey Rumlow, how long until he hunts you down?”

He managed to not frown, but he gave the other man a cold stare. “He’s already hunting,” he replied and a ghost of a smirk flickered over his face. “That’s the brilliance of the Winter Soldier. If he has a mission, he’s always hunting for the end result.”

Jake stretched out on the bed. “Are you so certain he won’t find us?”

“What do you care? You’re only here to report my success or failure, assuming the asset lets you live long enough to report that is,” Brock replied as he loaded his gun and locked a bullet into the chamber. “Besides, if he finds us, he’ll have eyes for me. You’re just a warm body occupying space.”

He looked over to find Jake picking at boogers and shook his head. What a goddamn itch to his ass this punk was. “I wonder what he’d be like to kiss.”

“Probably a little like sucking on a sharp knife,” he replied dryly, “or licking a stick of dynamite that’s been lit.”

“I guess I’ll ask when he leaves your bloody corpse on the floor,” Jake said with a loud guffaw of laughter. It was all purposeful, he knew, just to annoy him. The guy was too smooth in any other situation to not be acting. “Oh yeah, how do you want your remains to be dealt with?”

Brock shook his head. What the hell did he care what happened to his body? He would be dead and not worth the coin to kick him into a gutter. It didn’t particularly bother him that no one believed that he could do what he had set out to do, though he suspected that Karamartov was getting the idea that he was going to succeed or die trying.

“Do me a favour and shut your trap,” he finally said as he leveled his gun and sighted down it. “All this noise is going to attract unwanted attention.” He just happened to be waiting for that, but it would take time to happen.

No doubt Steve Rogers was sticking close to the asset, trying to search out the damage done and repair what could be. That was also the point, to let old Captain America watch the slide that would happen and be helpless to stop it. In the next day or so, things would come to a head and then the asset would start searching. He figured the Winter Soldier was humanized enough to make an attempt to be normal first but eventually, that brief flicker of fear would take over and be masked with anger. The asset would actively hunt him then, looking for his location to eliminate him now more as a threat rather than to find freedom. The difference was a fine line, but once the weapon moved from one to the other, it opened up weaknesses that only a well-trained handler knew how to use.

Or maybe just weakness he and perhaps Pierce knew how to use. It was times like these he wished the old bastard was still alive to mentor him. Oh well, there was no use crying over spilt milk.

“I’m going to order something to eat,” Jake suddenly said.

“Do whatever you want,” Brock replied, not even going to bother to waste emotion on the guy.

He hadn’t been given a cell phone or any other device that might be tracked to him, since they all knew that Captain America’s friend was probably looking. Stark had a habit of data mining for innate details, so he had been careful not to give himself away or even talk on the phone for the time being. SHIELD would have had his voice, and he wasn’t about to be linked to a location with voice recognition, so it was on Jake to keep him in good standing with his superiors. He also didn’t trust the asshole to give him all the details.

Until then, he concentrated on not being bored. He was going to need a team of twelve soon enough, and all of them people HYDRA didn’t particularly like, except one. He intended to do this with at least one agent he could trust, but he had to plant the seed first. That’s where being an idiot like Jake came in.

Brock wondered how long until the Winter Soldier killed. It was bound to get tiring constantly being on guard from general human stupidity and weakness. Soon or later, the asset was going to slip up. He hoped it was soon, hoped it would be as brutal and explosive as all those other uncontrolled times. If only he could be there to watch too.

“You knew you were still mine the moment we looked at each other,” he murmured as he began to sharpen his knife. “Unlike your ‘friends’, I don’t care if you kill someone for being weak. You need me; you just don’t know it yet.”

“Was that you wanting a pepperoni pizza?” Ugh, what a shit stain. Did that guy do anything but ruin the moment for him?

“I’m not eating pizza, so shut it and order whatever you want,” he snarled, keeping his voice low because Jake was still on the phone. “…asshole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and any comments and kudos given. I appreciate it all (and I only just recently realized we can reply to comments).


	6. A Lapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I rewrote most parts of this chapter at least three times, but this is what I eventually settled with. Like all other chapters, this is not beta'd so apologies for any grammatical or spelling mistakes found.

***

The first time that Brock had encountered the Winter Soldier blanked, he had wondered at the effectiveness of the entire process. At first, he hadn’t actually understood much about the process itself, just the results and the smell of ozone in the air, the same kind of smell he associated with a thunderstorm. It would only be later that he found out that the technicians ruined the asset’s memory with a considerable amount of electricity until there was nothing left but a swaying empty vessel who had training and the same techniques for being such an effective assassin, but what little personality the weapon developed was gone and even the predator momentarily subdued.

He also came to realize the chair that they made the asset sit in all the time was not as benign as he had been first lead to believe. The technicians explained that they made the asset go to the chair so there wasn’t continual association with the chair and pain, since pain was the biggest learning tool that any living creature had. If mind-racking electricity didn’t happen all the time but only occasionally, the asset tolerated it than if the only time the weapon went to the chair was to get zapped.

It was ingenious in its simplicity really.

Brock walked into the Vault, as the bank base of operation was shortened to, and moved to retrieve the asset for a mission. He found his weapon dressed, armed and waiting silently in the chair, but the air was very different about the Winter Soldier. There was a subdued confusion about the asset, blue eyes glassy and blinking rapidly from time to time. He had never seen the asset so… not there, except perhaps when the weapon was just fresh out of cryostasis.

He maneuvered to the technician checking the numbers next to where the asset sat and regarded his charge out of the corner of his eye. “Is there a problem?”

“No, just final checks,” the female technician said without looking up. “He’s ready for the mission, though he hasn’t been debriefed. I was told you would do that on the plane.”

He nodded and reached out, seizing the asset’s jaw and forcing the weapon to look at him. There was an emptiness that he recognized from his first time meeting the asset, but this time, there was no surge of that dark force that lurked. He stroked a thumb over the asset’s jaw, trying to provoke a response that he knew well. Nothing happened.

Maybe the technician realized it was his first time associating with the asset like this. She snapped her fingers in front of the asset’s face, causing a bit more blinking. “The adverse effects won’t last more than an hour. He recovers quickly from it.”

“It?”

“Electroshock behaviour modification,” the technician said with a shrug, still writing down a few numbers from the screen nearby.

“You guys fried his brain?” Brock looked at the asset who was breathing well and still blankly staring around the room. “What for?”

“It’s required when he reaches a certain point in regeneration of his brain tissue. If he starts to resist his orders or has an incident of falling off the grid, we assess the problem and give him a dose of electricity to curb the behaviour,” the technician said with more patience than most people down in this place. She obviously liked her job or was new. “It’s similar to you ordering him, just more extreme. You curb behaviours so they are productive. We curb behaviours when the orders fail so you can continue to be productive on missions.”

Brock understood perfectly well, and he slipped his hand from the asset’s chin in order to cup the back of the Winter Soldier’s neck, squeezing and massaging as he always did as a way of greeting. The asset said nothing but suddenly looked up at him and some kind of recognition flickered there. They stared at each other while the technician wrote down a few more numbers and then unhooked the asset from the leads.

She snapped her fingers a few more times in front of the asset’s face to draw attention to herself, but it just annoyed him as he had to remove his hand from where it rested. She checked the weapon’s pupil responses before indicating that she was finished. “Agent Rumlow, your impression isn’t affected by the modification. He’s in your hands.”

As it was told to him later by some weird biological major on a fifteen minute coffee break, the brain communicated through two systems: electrical and chemical. The two methods of communication worked hand-in-hand but also independently to a degree. The electricity ruined aspects of the brain and changed connections without ruining chemical input. The impression process was purely chemical, hence the use of mind altering drugs to beat a handler’s presence into the asset’s brain. Because the blanking was electrical only, impressions for handlers remained locked into the weapon’s flesh, though it was unlikely the asset remembered specifically any previous experience together.

It was like getting a good familiar feeling off of a person, but having no idea where one had met them. It might have been a little bit like trust, but he doubted it went that far. The asset had no control over those impressions and simply accepted the handler based on a sensation of familiarity. No doubt the stronger the impression, the easier it was to accept the person it belonged to.

Brock shifted and stepped away from the chair, throwing a vague look of impressed disgust at the device before he gestured for the asset to rise. There was no hesitation, but the movements were robotic and stiff. Those motions loosened up as the Winter Soldier followed him around to gather the mission briefing, like shaking off kinks in the system, yet he had the impression that the asset followed him because he was familiar compared to everyone else down in the Vault.

Soon enough, he felt the asset following at his elbow like the wraith that the weapon was, and people watched them leave the building to step into the heavily armoured bank truck that normally carried money to places around the city. Now it was carrying one of the most valuable weapons mankind had ever created. They said nothing to one another and arrived in good time for take-off in the cargo hold of a commercial aircraft on a direct flight to Libya.

Their packs were squirreled inside and waiting for them, but the problem with flying in the cargo hold was that it was loud, cold and had the worst of any turbulence. At first, they sat next to each other and the asset stared off into space, the black mask covering the lower half of the man’s facial features looking amusingly like some kind of muzzle.

He spent the take off and some of the flight reading the mission details and then handing it off to the asset to read. He knew from experience that the asset would memorize the details on the first read and have little need to be questioned when they landed.

When the silence aside from the noises of the plane almost lulled him to sleep, Brock finally just reached out and grasped the back of the asset’s neck, stroking the long column under his fingers. The asset’s head drooped a little reflexively before he applied his fingers and pulled the weapon over without verbal command. There was something to be said about their impression because the Winter Soldier seemed to understand what he wanted and shifted to lay down next to him and settle that blanked head against his thigh. It was a usual arrangement when they were alone, though he remembered almost uncomfortably the mission where they lay cuddled together on a bed.

“You’re still mine,” he said as if it were an absolute truth. “No matter how much they fry your brain, you’ll still be mine to command. Won’t you?”

There was only silence from the weapon laying awake and ready for action, but his fingers continued to stroke the back of the asset’s neck with an absent affection. They had a good working relationship, but he didn’t particularly like the lack of subtle cues from the weapon that he had began a strong mastery of. The asset didn’t even look at him.

His fingers pinched just under the jutting bones of the vertebrae at the base of the asset’s skull. “Answer me,” he demanded coldly. 

“Yes.” The verbal reply barely made it to his ears over the sound of the engines.

“What name do you call me?” A sort of awkward silence filled the gap as the asset’s eyebrows drew together. “What’s my name?” He didn’t bother to keep the aggrieved note from his voice, though he knew it was unfair to want it. It wasn’t like he _cared_.

The impression might have been strong for him, but actual ‘data’ about him was clearly lost with the blanking process. It should have amused him, but really, it just annoyed him. He hadn’t even gotten the enjoyment of seeing the asset mind-wiped, just had to deal with the fallout of its effects. He’d probably have to get used to it in the future, but he might request being present for it for educational purposes only though watching such strength writhe with the effects of electricity would be quite a sight.

It finally became clear that the gift he had given not so long ago had been lost. The asset lay quiet and unresponsive. With no answer to give, the weapon was obligated to remain silent.

He tipped the asset’s face up, forcing the weapon’s neck to an awkward angle that forced the Winter Soldier to shift shoulders just to make it possible. So accommodating. “Brock Rumlow,” he said, smirking as he cupped his hand on the asset’s neck in their familiar greeting. “Don’t forget it.”

He watched the asset commit the name to memory, but he wondered after if it was worth the effort. “Rumlow,” the asset finally said back carefully.

“Brock,” he said sternly. “Everyone else calls me ‘Rumlow’, but you’ll call me Brock.” He didn’t acknowledge the difference to himself, that so few people called him by his first name that he could count them on one hand. They were all people he trusted to a degree.

“Brock,” the Winter Soldier said carefully, still peering up at him. There was something, a grudging sort of recognition that was so brief, he wasn’t even certain it happened. He still rubbed his fingers along the back of the asset’s neck.

The rest of the flight passed in silence, and when they touched down for the mission, he and the asset slipped into overalls to mimic the sort that baggage handlers wore when offloading luggage. He was in the process of tying off the asset’s hair when the baggage compartment was opened and the rest of the assigned STRIKE team who had been assembling over the last few days arrived wearing similar clothing and the team unloaded the plane as was part of the mission before slipping off on an apparent lunch break that they had no intention of returning from. Another team would take their place to keep things running smoothly for their return flight.

Jack Rollins had been leader of the small able STRIKE team until he had arrived in which case he took command of the mission. Because Jack and the rest of the team had been assembling and gotten a feel for the lay of the land, which was notoriously volatile in the last few years because of Soviet and American pressures, it was best to have up to date information in Libya and all of the Middle East. 

Once he had a clear update on the situation, they moved with the mission, which was the destruction of a small intelligence gathering center that had found some apparent interesting information on certain factions that were better off in the dark. Their team of seven was not standard, but the asset was a spare and they needed as small a team as possible to be able to move in and out without much notice. As always, the asset would proceed in first and they were support and to set explosives to reduce the compound to ashes. According to Pierce, they were to leave evidence of Stark weaponry for some reason or another.

Brock moved fluidly with his team, and the mission was the usual almost bland success. They were good at their jobs, and the asset was the best, reducing any hostiles to no threat at all in a matter of twenty minutes. The explosives were set, the evidence of specific weaponry left behind and only once they were moving out of range did the explosions rock their little transport truck.

The hitch came when they were dropping off their gear and heading to a different transport that would return them to the airport. The Winter Soldier walked at his elbow, the rest of the team scattered throughout the street ahead so they didn’t move as a big group. The day was only starting for most people, and the walk was a mile to the new truck, but they were dressed as close to civilians as possible and that meant only chest armour.

However, like all hostile countries with a knack for ruining the surest of plans, gunfire broke out ahead. Jack dropped back to him and sneered. “Apparent civilians, a group of five… nothing like the usual upheaval to make a trip exciting. Orders?”

“Keep moving,” he said simply and allowed Rollins to relay the information. He turned his head to look at the asset who was watching the goings on ahead with only a passive interest. People running was something the Winter Soldier was used to, though he could see his charge picking out easy weak targets. “Settle,” he ordered, getting a flicker of blue eyes in his direction.

“Travers reports from the front we might have to shift our route. Car bomb went off about twenty minutes ago, killed a couple of people, hence the guns,” Rollins reported simply, clearly not interested in the chaos of a simple car bomb. Those were all too common in this area.

“Civilians moving in?”

“They’ll be making a gathering; that’s usual for this kind of event.”

Brock nodded and gestured at the asset. “Up the line with Travers, avoid contact with hostiles but if they shoot on or near us, take them out,” he ordered and the Winter Soldier eased through the streets and slowly gathering people to move up with their lead.

He walked with a more of a brisk pace beside his second-in-command and there was more generalized upheaval as they got closer, the smell of smoke finally making its presence known. There was more gunfire too, but aside from passive interest, he and Rollins simply kept walking until the second car bomb went off up head of them, lighting up the street momentarily, eliciting screams and causing a shift of gunfire. No doubt the first had been a distraction and the second was to cause maximum casualties for the milling crowd of people.

There was static across their communication devices until Smith said, “Travers is down.”

Brock’s hand flew to his ear piece as he barked, “the asset?”

“Unknown status, sir. Too much smoke and chaos currently.” He began to hurry forward because a damaged asset could be an erratic one he had been told. He had never been on a mission where the Winter Soldier had been damaged with more than a bruise or scrape that he didn’t cause himself, so like always, he was trouble-shooting in the dark.

There was a blast of gunfire nearby as people shouted, scrambled away or just plain wailed in the streets. Some were wounded, most were just frightened or distraught, but as the rest of the team reached the new burning vehicle, they spotted Smith next to a familiar body, half the guy’s dead face burnt off and the body littered with shrapnel.

He approached and snarled. “Smith and Jackson, bag him and get him out of here. We leave no one behind.” They were never supposed to be here so an American body could not be found. He watched impassively as the two immediately dragged what was left of Travers off to bag it.

Brock left Rollins to form up the other two men and pushed through the crowd in search of the only important thing to retrieve. There was a mess of bodies everywhere, some of whom were in pieces thanks to the sheer amount of purposeful small metal probably left in the car. People were shredded, and those who weren’t just got in the way as he searched for the Winter Soldier. That was priority, but he felt cool and calm despite the adrenaline rush of any kind of mission. The asset was not easily caught unaware.

Yet, there was a moment when his heart skipped a beat in his chest when he saw a recognizable set of clothing laying a few meters off, no doubt having ranged ahead of Travers who had caught some of the full blast. The asset was far enough away where fire had not been the priority but flying shrapnel, and he approached the downed figure with a military briskness before crouching.

“It’s Brock,” he said, identifying himself before he reached out and grabbed the asset’s metal shoulder, flipping the weapon over and freezing. There was blood. There was a lot of blood, most of it dotted down the Winter Soldier’s right leg and arm, but his eyes couldn’t help but fix on the wide blue eyes that stared in surprise at him. The asset didn’t thrash or grab at the painful metal thankfully, but Brock’s eyes stared openly at the piece of shrapnel that had obviously shot like a thin bullet through the asset’s throat and lodged there.

Instantly, his hands shot out to touch the injury, feeling first around the piece of metal where it was just off center of the asset’s throat and at an angle to pass out the right side. There was blood, but this wasn’t somehow a bleed out situation yet. Field medicine said he should pull it, but it was such a vulnerable area, so many vital blood vessels, nerves and tubes connecting the head to the trunk.

“…Brock…” His name was croaked, questioning as his fingers pressed around the metal in the Winter Soldier’s throat, debating with himself what to do. There was still relief at the sound of his name; the asset couldn’t have taken it through the trachea and hopefully not any of those very vital blood vessels.

“Easy now, stay still for me,” he said before looking over his shoulder to spot his second looking for them. “Rollins,” he called, though he couldn’t wave the man over.

They exchanged a look at the shrapnel and the placement of his hands on the asset. “Should I call it in?”

“Not here. We can’t have an international incident,” he said sharply before looking down into the asset’s pale face. Those blue eyes flicked around guardedly but often returned to him, as trusting as that empty head could be. “We both know basic first-aid. We remove it and bandage him up. Then we get him out with Travers and call it in.”

“This isn’t basic first-aid, Rumlow,” Rollins said but was already rifling through the backpack the man had previously been wearing. “Let me see his throat,” the other man added roughly.

Brock said nothing against the order; Rollins had more first-aid training than he did, though neither of them could ever be considered any kind of medical officer of any sort. Either way, he peered around, but most people were not paying attention to them as they had their own dead or dying to worry about and three other dark-haired men just mixed in with the crowd.

“Can I touch him?” Rollins’ question drew him back to the present, and he realized this was probably the first time anyone but him had touched the asset. “Not going to tear my face off?”

“No, he’s compliant,” he said before looking into the asset’s pale sweaty face. “Stay still. We’re going to help you, but it’s going to hurt. You move and I’ll give you something to cry about.” It was an empty threat, more because the asset probably had long ago lost the ability to produce enough wetness to be considered tears than because it was a threat he would carry out.

Rollins quickly examined the wound on the asset’s neck, feeling around the piece of shrapnel trapped there. The asset hitched a breath when his second pressed a finger into the wound itself but otherwise didn’t move. “It’s thinner on this side. We have to pull it on the other carefully. You pull it.”

“Is that an order, asshole,” he asked, his voice dry even if he had no problem taking orders.

“Put your steady girlish sniper hands to use,” Rollins snapped back. “I’ve got his head and shoulders. Slowly, remember? No blowing yourself early.”

“I was always told the pull-out method works,” he replied as they changed positions so that he could get a clear hold on the thin metal jutting from the side of the asset’s neck. His eyes met with the blue eyes watching him as Rollins grasped the asset’s head with hands and set knees to the weapon’s shoulders. “Trust me.”

“Yeah, I do, Rumlow, let’s do this,” Rollins muttered.

Brock hadn’t been talking to or even looking at his second but the asset who seemed about to surge up because of Jack’s weight and hold. At his soft command, the asset settled and stared at him with unwavering intensity as he grasped the metal and slowly and gently worked it loose, letting Rollins issue commands on his progress.

There was no dramatic spray of blood as he slipped the long piece of shrapnel free and let out the breath he had been holding. He shifted and allowed Rollins back in to examine the injury fully revealed, and his bloody hand patted the Winter Soldier’s head in praise. That was closer than he would have like to losing his charge, but his distraction allowed Jack to quickly and crudely bandage the wound when it seemed that nothing obviously vital had been severed.

“Keep him calm, Rumlow.” His second then turned to the Winter Soldier’s arm, and together they removed what was left of the sleeve and assessed the damage. There was a lot of blood, but Rollins seemed uncaring as the man reached out and slowly pulled free a piece of shrapnel and set it aside. 

“We’ll have to remove what we can here, bandage it and get him out. Most of this is superficial as long as he didn’t take some to his chest or abdomen,” Rollins finally said after extracting a few more pieces of thin sharp metal. A piece of glass followed then more metal, but he and the asset remained focused almost entirely on him. It was probably the only reason that the Winter Soldier didn’t slaughter them all.

When Jackson and Wright found them, Brock ordered them to give up whatever material could be considered first-aid. A few bandages, tape and even a tensor showed up to add to the pile that Rollins had. The two team members then filed off under order to keep a discrete distance but be ready to fire if they were approached while Jack worked. The arm wasn’t as bad as the asset’s leg which had taken worse damage, bigger pieces of shrapnel.

Yet, they worked quickly and effectively, cleaning up most of the mess as Brock kept checking the Winter Soldier who really only seemed intent on peering at him. He pushed some bloody hair from the asset’s face, not as unnerved of the stare as everyone else would be. There was a small wince and twitch from the Winter Soldier followed by a soft mutter of apology from Rollins.

“…Brock…”

He froze at the same time Rollins did, and their gazes met briefly. He should have just socked the asset one right in the mouth then and there, but with the injuries, he wasn’t going to risk it. Instead, he glared at the Winter Soldier peering up at him as Jack began to hastily bandage the leg up. There wasn’t nearly enough material to make it from hip to ankle. Too bad, but it would have to do for now.

They moved the asset up carefully, but he was stuck carrying most of the Winter Soldier’s weight given he was the handler. If the asset somehow decided to malfunction, he might be the only one to be able to control the weapon and it was better to keep his hands close. They moved slowly and without incident, by now most of the other live people from the explosion also being carted off from the scene. They didn’t look odd doing the same.

Somehow, sweaty and grumpy by the end, they made it to an extraction point and called in their location. It would be impossible to assume that they could return to the underbelly of a chartered flight with the asset in such condition, so Wright was put in charge of getting them the hell out of there while Rollins had Smith and Jackson secured their location. Because of the Winter Soldier, they were given priority for movement and were picked up within four hours.

Brock was left in the uncomfortable but necessary position of having to stay with the asset, keeping the bastard warm and awake, which involved them returning to the precarious position of cuddling under kelvar enforced jackets. Just to change it up from the last time, they spooned and he spent the entire time gritting his teeth and wanting to punch that blank pale head whenever one of his men peeked in or the asset shifted to settle more firmly against him.

They had to wait until an actual medical officer arrived with the extraction team and cleared the Winter Soldier for transport and recovery. Once loaded up, the asset was bundled up in blankets with that empty head pillowed on his thigh, which was something he was so used to that it was second nature.

Rollins found him there for the flight to less hostile territory, and he didn’t question when Jack slipped down to the wall to sit near him. “Does it know many handler’s names?”

He glared at the other man. “It’s not free information.”

“You know that like you, I have to report the full incident,” Rollins said simply. It was a warning that the fact that asset knew his name would probably come up. “Probably the explosion and all, Rumlow, but…”

He shrugged. “So report it. It’s not like he’s going to remember it for long. He’s a weapon; he does what he’s told to do and does it well.”

Jack considered him for a long time before glancing at the asset sleeping – or at least looking like it – against his thigh. They generally only spoke about missions or pretended to joke about shit that didn’t matter. “I’ve never seen someone handle him like you do.”

Brock stared like he had no idea what to make of that statement. He, of course, had never seen another handler with the asset aside from Pierce who no longer took field missions; it was never allowed to have more than one handler as it would confuse the Winter Soldier who to take order from. He had read enough of the other handler’s files and work to know that Rollins clearly had worked on enough missions to know the difference between them. What was so different?

With an air of not-giving-a-shit, he waved a hand in the air before it almost automatically settled on the back of the asset’s bandaged neck, his thumb stroking. “What, he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to with the others?”

“There is always some measure of fear in them,” Jack replied with a shrug and sat down nearby. “They know what he can do better than the rest of us, so they do what they can to avoid that kind of violence.” The other man scratched a dirty cheek with a finger. “Or they are hard with him like he’s not alive at all. Just a walking robot. You’re the only one to wade in like the violence doesn’t matter and you smack him around only when he went against your order.”

He’d heard that happened often enough, but while the asset was ground down to instinct with training and tight behaviour modification, he had seen firsthand a few months ago that something else lurked in that empty head. The asset was still the greatest weapon he had the pleasure of aiming at a target.

Brock opened his mouth to reply but Wright appeared with a satellite phone looking grim. “The Secretary wants an update from the Unit Leader.” Shit… Pierce knew already?

He took the phone and pressed it to his ear and gathered himself, and his hand set to the asset’s temple when the weapon stirred under him. The non-verbal order was clear and even Rollins shifted up and left them alone. “Rumlow here,” he said guardedly.

“Status on the asset.” The words were cool, crisp and business-like, but he suspected he heard an undertone of anger there.

“Shrapnel injuries, mostly superficial to his right arm and leg, but it appears that he protected his main body by sacrificing his arm,” Brock said, straining to hear if anyone was listening in. The sound of the plane was enough where he even had trouble hearing if Pierce was still on the other line. “He took a piece of shrapnel to the throat, but… it was non-lethal.”

“Why was the asset in the bomb radius?”

Yeah, he expected that question. “I made the call to send him up with Agent Travers to secure the front as there were hostiles from a previous bomb site nearby. We were stretched in a casual formation to limit attention drawn to us, and no one knew there was a second bomb. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said in clipped clear speech. He knew there was technically no ‘wrong place, wrong time’ in Pierce’s eyes, and if he got his ass kicked for it, then he would take his lumps.

There was only silence on the other end, and he wondered if the satellite phone had cut off the connection. “I want a full report from all surviving members of your squad upon landing.”

“Yes sir,” he replied.

“In two days time, you’ll be in my office at oh-eight-hundred,” Pierce said with a little less displeasure. “We need to have a discussion about your future.”

Brock frowned, his fingers passing over the bandages surrounding the sleeping asset’s neck, but there was no room to refuse. “Yes sir, oh-eight-hundred.” He hung up the phone and set it aside, leaning his head on the bulkhead of the plane.

“…Brock?”

He turned his face down to regard the asset peering back at him, and he offered a cocky smile as he settled his hand over his charge’s eyes like a blindfold. “Get some sleep; we’ll be back on US soil soon enough, and I need you in good condition for the hand off.” The asset shifted under his hand but didn’t fight his touch either way. Soon enough the Winter Soldier settled, but he felt the distinct pull on his trouser leg indicating that the asset’s fingers had latched on. Oh well, after all the damn snuggling it was expected.

Still, he wondered if being blanked before this mission would mean that the asset would remember his name the next time they met, assuming another blanking wasn’t in order. He supposed he would find out very soon now that he was moving up to being one of the more constant handlers on missions.

***

Steve had to admit that he had worried about leaving Bucky in Washington D.C. alone while he went on missions for SHIELD, but he knew better than to coddle his friend in any way. They had grown up together, and they had always been heavily supportive of each other but strove for independence in a world where so few people had the opportunity to do more than live in the streets. If he didn’t move on with his life, how could he lead the way for his best friend to do the same?

He knew that Rumlow’s sudden appearance had rocked the shaky stability that Bucky had been gathering. That night had been the first one where his friend had left the floor behind to cram onto his bed with him, though they only slept back-to-back like old times. The fact that it was necessary was enough to indicate the strain that the other man was under and the haunted, occasionally angry, looks were all that he needed to know that Bucky was trying to cope.

So, he had gone on the missions provided and he was fully aware that with nothing to tie Bucky to his apartment, the Winter Soldier would take over and start to hunt for signs of Brock Rumlow. He knew it was important to his friend to end the cycle of handler-weapon that had been forced upon Bucky all those years ago, but he also worried what would happen when the pair finally faced off.

Of course, he also had his hands full with his own battles, most of which involved the lesser HYDRA agents trying to buy amnesty with information. They had learned from the recent lesson not to allow those agents have anything to with the shuffling of SHIELD operations. Their information was checked and rechecked and only when validated was any kind of amnesty given, but that was above his head.

He just happened to be the favourite one to negotiate in small dark corners of the world. That was where he was currently, waiting for a HYDRA contact to bring forward information. Based on the information he had, it wasn’t a small fish this time. It was someone who had both backing and rank, so he waited on the docks of the old shipping yard, finding himself regarding the water beyond.

Yet, he looked over when a very nice black car pulled up, obviously his contact. A business man stepped out, one he didn’t recognize but the flighty gaze made it very clear the man was nervous. His eyes narrowed when two armed guards stepped out of the car next, but he simply crossed his arms in front of his chest in response.

“You’re the Grey Fox, I take it?” Steve was a busy man; he didn’t want to deal with misidentification.

“I am,” the older man said. Flanked by the two armed and helmeted guards, the trio came to him and stopped just within easy shooting distance. He wasn’t concerned. “I’m here on behalf of an associate.”

That had Steve’s eyes narrowing suspiciously, and he glanced around for signs of a sniper or other movement that this might be a trap. “Do I get the pleasure of your associate’s name?”

“Brock Rumlow.”

He was going to kill that man when he got his hands on the handler. Still, he somehow kept his shoulders from tightening, but he allowed his jaw to work in order to show his displeasure. Of course Brock would call in people to get in contact with him; he had direct access to Bucky. It was not only that but contacting him put him in a very difficult position with his best friend as he might have information that would help Bucky to find and eliminate Brock. He would, of course, always put Bucky first, but he knew the potential for danger on both sides.

“Go on,” he finally said.

“My associate is offering to meet you in person alone here. Is that an offer you would consider?” The Gray Fox was all business and clearly wanting to just plain leave. The man was glancing around nervously, something that set the hair on the back of his neck up in warning. “If you agree, I will see that it’s done.”

“And what does Rumlow bring to the table?”

“Information on a weapon of HYDRA.” The vagueness made him wonder if this man even knew who or what that weapon was.

“What do you get out of this?”

“I’m a liaison, nothing more,” the older man replied. “I will pass on your message.”

Steve frowned and shifted his shoulders to feel his shield at his back. This was a trap, though he couldn’t figure out why just yet. “I’ll meet with him, but I won’t grant him amnesty.” That was where he put his foot down. The ex-STRIKE leader had made it very clear that Bucky was the ultimate goal.

The Gray Fox just nodded and gestured at the car. Apparently Brock wasn’t even looking for amnesty, which caused him to shift uncomfortably where he stood. Just what was the jerk playing for? He knew he needed some information, but he wasn’t prepared to not resort to violence if it went that way. He had defeated Brock in the elevator, and he’d give the man a thrashing again if it came down to it.

A shaggy brunette emerged from the vehicle that was most definitely not Brock, but he recognized the lanky young man who the ex-STRIKE leader had been arguing with when Bucky had nearly charged down the pair. While he had focused more on Brock as a threat, he had noted back then this man had watched with a sort of benign interest, like the outcome hadn’t mattered. The guy kind of looked like someone a person could meet anywhere and shrug off.

“You put on a wig. It’s an ingenious disguise, Rumlow,” he said sarcastically.

“I knew I couldn’t fool you, Captain Rogers,” the young man said with such an endearing grin that Steve almost found himself replying in kind. “Your powers of perception are as super-powered as the rest of you.”

“Where’s the real Rumlow?”

“He’s coming,” came the reply before the young man waved a hand and the Gray Fox left without any other prompts. “The old man will call him in to let him know you agreed to meet with him.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I think if I get the pleasure of standing on old docks with a friend of Rumlow’s, I should at least have your name?” He would feel a little awkward playing nice with someone he didn’t even know what side the guy fell on.

Funny enough, his new contact immediately shot out a friendly hand for a shake. “Where are my manners? I’m Jake Minou. I work for HYDRA, but I’m so low on the totem pole, I’m probably still part of SHIELD because they forgot about me.”

Steve blinked at the honesty but still shook the young man’s hand. His doing so earned him a bright casual smile that reminded him so much of the old Bucky that he had to blink his eyes several more times to unsee it. “A pleasure… I think,” he replied with a nod. “Are you here to keep me distracted so I can be shot?”

“Nah, I’m here to give you actual conversation before you come to blows with Rumlow,” Jake said, gesturing with a head back towards the car. The two armed guards were standing just out of ear shot he noticed. “I’m also here to set a different kind of deal for the information that Rumlow is going to give you.”

“And that is?”

“He wants the immediate release of Jack Rollins from prison,” Jake said with a shrug. Clearly this guy was just relying messages here. “We know he hasn’t asked for amnesty yet, so we’re asking for his release.”

So it had never been about amnesty for Rumlow; it had been about getting his favourite second out of jail to return to the field. How did Brock benefit from Rollins being out and about? Yes, they had planned more missions with STRIKE together than he remembered and they had a long history, but alone, Brock could accomplish the same things. Unless Jack’s release had nothing to do with capturing Bucky at all? How much stability was in the ranks of HYDRA right now?

“And if I even consider that request, what do I get in return? It has to be something of equal value,” Steve finally replied, having done this a bit more than he would have liked. There was something distasteful about negotiating for a man’s life.

Jake tilted that shaggy head in consideration, humming and hawing enough that it was believable. How much did this kid know it made him wonder. “I don’t have the information that you want; Rumlow doesn’t share that stuff with me.” There was a shrug to accent the point. “However, I can give you a location to a HYDRA operation in the city of D.C. you’ll be keen to take. It’s operating on radio silence and always has.”

How could someone with that kind of honest open face be with HYDRA? It unsettled him. “You sound certain we don’t have the location already.”

“I know you don’t or it’d be all over the news,” Jake said before pulling out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind if I light up?”

“That stuff will kill you , kid,” Steve had to said but gestured all the same for Jake to do as the kid wanted. “What’s so important at this base of operations that it will be worth me letting a man like Jack Rollins go?”

The kid was busy taking a long drag from a cigarette, blowing a cloud of air into the breeze. “Rollins will confirm its existence if you ask him about it,” Jake said with a wink. “It’s also one of the places the Winter Soldier was known to go to ground when malfunctioning.”

Steve’s shoulders tightened with the information, but he also knew that so few people knew of the Winter Soldier even now that Jake could be calling his bluff. However, if Rollins confirmed… it could be a chance to rid the stragglers from D.C. and that was an opportunity he would like to take. “Son, does Rumlow know you’re giving up a place he might go with if he takes the Winter Soldier?”

“Well you see Cap, Rumlow and I don’t always see eye-to-eye. A low ranker like me means nothing to him, and he’s focused so much on his apparent prize that he likes to talk about it a lot. The Winter Soldier is going to be his golden egg to getting back into HYDRA proper, maybe even lead a division.” There was a sigh and then another drag on that cigarette. “All the while, I get to bottom out in the muck.”

“So you get glory by betraying this location,” Steve asked skeptically. It was too perfect.

“No man, I get to watch you kick the shit out of Brock Rumlow,” Jake said with a bark of laughter and a hand through that shaggy hair. “For me, I get to walk away, since aside from baby-sitting him, I haven’t done anything to warrant anyone to eliminate me. I don’t actually know anything useful except what Rumlow lets slip.”

He wanted to trust this kid who had obviously made a few bad life decisions and ended up in the wrong place. He liked to think that people could redeem themselves. “And why Rollins?”

“Rumlow asked me to negotiate for his release, but he never thought I could do it. He likes to watch me fail.” Steve would actually believe that of Rumlow; the mentality of HYDRA could be brutal on those it considered weak.

“So the location of a prime HYDRA base for the release of Jack Rollins?” Steve said, lifting his chin. “You give me the location first and I verify it and then I handle his release. That’s the way this will go or it doesn’t go at all.”

Jake frowned, took another drag from the dwindling cigarette and tapped a toe on the cement. There were obvious considerations to make, but the kid finally shrugged like it didn’t matter anymore. “You got yourself a deal, Captain Rogers.”

“You first.”

“The First National Bank,” Jake said simply. “In old town. All I know is you gotta check the floors.”

Steve glanced towards the water and considered the information, aware that the one that Jake was speaking about was indeed a very old bank. He knew very little about banking chains, but historic ones liked to tout their product and service and security, and how many people would look under a bank for a HYDRA base? It was so underhanded that it seemed to be something that the new subtle HYDRA would do.

He watched the young man in front of him butt out the cigarette and slowly nodded his head. “If the information is confirmed, I’ll have Jack Rollins released in two weeks in front of that bank. It will be up to him to contact Rumlow.” And by two weeks, they could have their hands on that base of operation before anyone was any wiser about it.

Jake nodded and probably would have taken up conversation again if Rumlow hadn’t appeared, walking down the old docks with a casual swagger. He saw the frown that the kid wore, and he wondered how long those two would get along. They stayed in silence watching Brock walk the distance to them, and as far as anyone could see, the ex-SHIELD agent wore only a pistol on the hip. If they came to blows, it was clear that Steve would win. That meant that Brock was confident this wasn’t going to come to blows at all.

Steve held his ground, his expression hard and didn’t say anything when both the two armed guards and Jake eased away to give them some privacy. This close he could see the ripple of scarring along Brock’s arms and the man’s neck. They looked like they still had to be tender, which made him wonder how the man could walk so easily and casually.

“You’re still stupid enough to come alone, are you?” It was a fine greeting if there ever was one between them now that there seemed no point in upholding pleasantries.

“I have confidence we can pass information without me killing you, Rumlow,” Steve replied with a cold edge to his voice. He glanced when the other man turned and looked across the docks, though there was nothing there. “The man in the car said you had information about a HYDRA weapon.”

“A warning more like,” Brock corrected, scratching at the pink scar tissue. “I had a dog once about eleven years ago. Brown-eyed black thing, never talked back, always did what he was told. The idiot couldn’t even muster a growl unless it was for play.”

He had a feeling he knew where this was going to go, given all the dog and leash references that had been given to him when he had first asked for information about Bucky. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I shot him right here on this dock,” Rumlow said without even flinching. “Right between the eyes. He fed some fish I imagine.” Slowly, their gazes met, and he couldn’t read what Rumlow was thinking with this whole line of thought. “I met the asset right after that, wiped his ass and everything. Now he had a growl and a bite that my dog never could.”

Steve felt his nostrils flare as he clenched his hands at his sides. There was just something that made him angry to hear Bucky referred to like a dog, and he fought the urge to just punch the other man in the face. “Your _point_?”

“Have you ever watched him in public? Like really watched him, not those casual friendly glances?” Rumlow was as casual as ever, no doubt thinking that control of the situation was held firmly by the other man.

“I keep my eye on him.”

“Then you’ve noticed, haven’t you?”

“Don’t talk in allusions, Rumlow. If you’re going to give me a warning, then give it and stop wasting my time,” Steve said coldly. The only good thing was that he knew where Rumlow was and knew that Bucky would be safe from any kind of harassment. “I watch him, yes, but he’s not on a leash with me.”

Brock gave him an appraising look for a long moment. “He’s a predator, Rogers. He can look like your friend, talk like your friend, pretend to fit in, but you can never fully trust him in public. People, as a general rule, are weak and even in the most casual of circumstances they give cues of weakness. A tip of the neck, eyes dropping to the floor to avoid your gaze, the sudden darting of a child for some shiny toy… it’s all an overwhelming experience for someone designed to have no weakness. There will _always_ be a primal hunger even when his belly is full.”

With each word, each example, he felt cold clench in his stomach, not because he was concerned that Bucky was a walking hunting cat but because Rumlow was telling him a side of his friend that he suspected but they never spoke of. He _had_ seen Bucky go rigid when children waddled like little ducks in a row to school; he’d seen the cold stare as a woman ducked her head nervously in front of them. He knew that his friend preferred to exercise in the early hours to avoid large crowds of people, but he thought it might be an anxiety in the face of transition from weapon to human again.

“He’s never hurt anyone or made a move to,” Steve replied carefully. He was given the impression he was about to walk into a new trap. “He watches but nothing more.”

“For now,” Brock replied with a great shrug. “He’s developed fine control over himself, probably a strangle hold for now, but the moment his attention slips and he loses control, are you going to have it in you to take him out when he’s got a kid by the throat?”

He would step in, but he wanted to be in position to halt that from happening in the first place. “I can handle him if he loses control.”

“Well, good thing he has a new handler then, isn’t it?” The set up really had been genius, and he realized his error only after the words, wincing slightly. He needed to stop forgetting that Brock no longer had a need to pull punches with him. “Don’t look so offended; when you realize he needs it, you’ll appreciate your position all the more.”

Steve felt his lips pinch in a thin line of displeasure. “How can you enjoy being a handler?”

Brock almost seemed genuinely surprised by the question, but then the guy laughed like what he asked was a big joke. “How could I not, Rogers? He’s the greatest weapon I ever had the pleasure of handling, better than any gun I fired, surer than any knife I wield and most explosive than any grenade I threw. That weapon is a thing of beauty; even you have to admire the things he could do, but I don’t expect you to understand being what you are now. You’re as much a weapon as he is; however, he listens to orders when you don’t.”

Steve narrowed his eyes dangerously. “And what makes you think that I’m going to let you within a mile of him again?”

“For one, you want him to beat me,” came the reply, a smug smirk on Brock’s face. “For two, you can’t stop him from finding me. You know he’s looking. For three, he wants to find me, and you won’t stand in his way of getting what he wants, what you think he needs.”

“And what happens when he finds you, since we both know he will?” He wondered if Rumlow realized how important this answer was to him, how it was dictate if he let the man even walk away.

“Either I die or I don’t,” Brock said as if they were just talking about the weather. “In a fight, I can’t beat him. I’ve accepted that long ago, and I don’t fear death anyway. Outside of one, it can go either way.”

“You aren’t the type of guy that leaves something to a chance,” Steve said coolly.

“No, I’m not, but I’ve been wrong before. It depends how good a job you’ve done in bringing him back, I suppose. If he can shake commands, I’m limited. If he can’t, he’s mine, but then again… he always has been mine since that day eleven years ago.” There as a confidence that came with years of experience in Rumlow’s voice, a faint fondness in a man who had faked any sort of attachment previously. “I was going to replace Pierce once Insight was in the air. I would have been the asset’s full-time handler.”

“And now you are anyway because all the other handlers are dead,” Steve said simply. Either way, it seemed like the ex-agent had still won.

Brock just shrugged again, some of the cockiness went out of the man. He couldn’t tell whether or not it was an act or something genuine, and he cursed Rumlow for being such a good actor. “Eventually, he’ll lose control. You can only hope your impression is good enough to box off those behaviours.”

Steve narrowed his eyes again. “I’m trying to fix him so he won’t have to worry about losing control and being on guard all the time.”

“Good luck with that,” Brock replied, sneering in disgust. “You’ll need to look into mind wipe technology given how often they had to behaviour modify him in the beginning and sometimes thereafter. They rewired his brain as often as they thought it was necessary.”

“I know. I read the file,” he said coolly. How that file haunted him sometimes just knowing what had been done to his friend and worse seeing parts of the results that Bucky let slip.

“I watched them blank him,” Rumlow said in a decidedly neutral voice. “He knew what would happen to him when they were ordered to wipe him. Yet, he obediently sat back and let it happen; he let them alter him.” Suddenly there was a grin that didn’t reach Rumlow’s eyes. “His chest gets all heaved up, he blinks his eyes rapidly, sets his teeth while the restraints…”

“Enough,” Steve snapped and raised a fist in pure threat and want to lay the other man right out on the docks. “You’ve made your point.”

“Have I, Rogers?” Brock seemed almost disappointed that the verbal torture had ended when it did, as if the joke got cut off at the punch line or the story was shut down at the climax. “If you aren’t man enough to command him when he needs it, he’s going to unload on someone and it won’t be pleasant. You put enough strain on anything, it’s going to bend and then break. When that dam breaks, someone is going to die.”

It was all of his restraint not to hit Rumlow, but while satisfying, he recognized that importance as well. This was clear information that a man who had worked on the other side of Bucky was giving him willingly. He wanted to wonder why, but it was more important to realize that Brock was of the opinion that his friend couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t be left alone.

He hated himself as he asked the question, “how did you handle him?”

“Missions,” Brock said and that cocksure smirk came back. “Orders to make bad behaviour productive, setting them in a certain direction. Give him an objective, and he’ll show you only his best.” And it was very clear that Rumlow had gotten a lot of Bucky’s best out in the field. “If you think he’s stressed in a situation, you better be prepared to order him, Rogers. _‘On your knees’_ was one my personal favourites. His too.”

Steve finally took that swing he had been wanting to, saw Rumlow try to dodge, but his knuckles grazed the man’s chin and forced the ex-agent to stumble. Had that been a cheer from the car that he had heard? While he would have enjoyed seeing Brock hit the cement, he was satisfied just seeing the man unbalanced. He eyed the other man, prepared to close the distance and add another punch, but it seemed that point had been made.

“Heh, good, you’ve still got the fight in you,” Rumlow said with an edge of amusement. “You going to kill me, Rogers? Got what it takes?”

“It’s Bucky’s right to decide whether a man like you lives or dies. After all the years you abused him, I’ll leave it in his capable hands. You deserve everything you get,” Steve spat, his glower normally enough to force another man to back down. Not Rumlow though. 

“You call it abuse, but there can never be order without pain,” Brock replied. No doubt that was a mantra the man lived by. “He’s mine, Rogers. I gave him order; I gave him pain when he needed it most. He will _always_ be mine until the day he cuts me to little pieces and that day…” The look of pleasant euphoria on Rumlow’s face sickened him. “…that day will be the best and last day of my life.”

Steve straightened his jacket. “Get out of my sight, Rumlow before I change my mind.”

Brock swung into a mock bow, still smirking and then swaggered off towards the car. He watched the man go until he was certain that he was out of hand pistol range and then turned his back and walked away. He couldn’t imagine having to live under the order of a man like that, not with the glaring insight that he had just been given. He was going to have a long talk with Bucky tonight about this confrontation; he had no secrets to hide in that way.

***

He had never been to the Veteran Affairs building before, though Steve had spoken highly of it and one of the men that worked there. The only reason he knew the man known as Sam Wilson or the Falcon was because their previous time together had involved a lot of feet connecting to each other back when there had been a mission on Steve and the Widow when he was still taking orders from Alexander Pierce. The Falcon had been the spare, someone to take out only if the man stood too entrenched in the way of his mission, but aside from having himself kicked and the kicking the other out of the sky, they had had very little to do with each other.

The Winter Soldier wasn’t entirely certain why Steve had handed him the box of books and records and asked him to go to the VA as the building was called for short to return them to Sam. He suspected this was a subtle attempt to get him away from hunting up clues on Rumlow’s current whereabouts but also to force him to meet with other men who Steve associated with. There was also the sensation that Steve ushered him there because soldiers acted different around each other, that having served in a uniform might be something he could relate to.

So there he was, box under his metal arm, walking down the hallway of the building in search of a man that he would know by sight and little else. He stopped next to an open door and peered around the side of it, spotting the very man that was his target for delivery, but it was clear that a meeting was going on. Something about carrying burdens, which he already had plenty of and wanted no part in talking about them.

He waited until he was recognized standing the doorway and then slipped away until he saw most of the people filing out chatting together almost half an hour later. He dropped his head so the visor of his baseball cap obscured his face until he sensed someone actually approaching his position. He lifted his head then, staring at the dark-skinned man who seemed as weary of him as he was of the man.

He shifted the box from under his arm to balance on the flat of his raised metal hand in a neat little move of his arm. He held it out pointedly. “Steve asked me to return this to you. He told me to pass on his thanks for letting him borrow them.”

“Ah, those were his exact words?” Was that supposed to be a bit of humour there?

“I can give you complete quotes of his exact wording if it would suit you,” he replied coolly. Memorizing orders were something that he had had to do all the time, and he remembered well the exact words because Steve had also written them. “Are you going to take your box?”

Sam seemed to measure the fact he was still holding it up levelly with an impressed look. “How long can you actually hold it like that?”

“As long as required,” he replied, with an edge to his voice. He would hold it until his shoulder muscles fatigued.

“Huh, I thought you’d have a bit more of a sense of humour by now,” Sam said and finally took the box from him, though there was no seriousness in the tone anymore. He eyed the small smile he was given. “Thanks for returning them, though it was his idea wasn’t it?”

He had already said that Steve told him to bring the stuff, and he instead turned his head to watch a small group of people chatting near the exit of the building. They laughed at someone’s story before seeming to realize that they were blocking the exit and slapped one another on the backs and said their farewells. They acted like people confident in themselves, only a bit too loud for his tastes but otherwise, no threat to him. 

Slowly, his blue eyes flicked back to Sam who was watching him closely. “I should go,” he said abruptly.

“You don’t go out in public much with other people, do you?” It was probably a very obvious observation since he was here alone and knew so few people to begin with. “You look like you’re constantly on guard. Doesn’t that get tiring?”

He shifted his weight on his feet and stared at Sam. Perhaps Steve really wanted him to come in order to have his actions analyzed. “I have to be. People wouldn’t like the result if I wasn’t.” It was, perhaps, a warning.

“You don’t seem like the type of guy who loses control that easily,” the dark-skinned man observed softly. “If you’re anything like Steve…”

“I’m not much like Steve,” he replied flatly.

“Yeah you are, man. You’re human just like he is, just like the rest of us,” Sam replied.

The logic stilled him because he couldn’t remember a time when he had been referred to as a human being before, by someone other than Steve pointed out that he had potential to be more than a weapon. How long had it been since he had been just a human? No doubt not since 1945 before he had fallen into the cold and then forged out of it.

“You might not believe it, might not have the time or option to believe it, but in the end, you’re as human as the rest of us. You feel, you bleed, you probably even run about thirteen miles in thirty minutes too.” That last part was clearly a poke at Steve’s morning runs which he had been a part of once or twice.

The easy combination of logic, a touch of sympathy and humour finally had his shoulders relaxing a little. He supposed he could see why Steve valued Sam so much. “He’s taking longer than thirty minutes now.”

Sam almost seemed startled by his reply before looking at him suspiciously. “You booby-trapping his run?”

“No, but he’s met more than his share of trees and bushes on it lately,” he said carefully, putting the words down with intention of it being at least light-humoured. It was hard for him only because he knew Sam was looking for deception. “He even went for a swim in the Reflection Pool.”

“You seriously shoved him into the water?”

“He tripped.”

“On your leg?” Sam was smiling, clearly imagining what that scenario would look like. “You realize I’m going to be out there jogging earlier to see you do that to him. I can’t even keep up.”

The Winter Soldier shrugged. “I don’t want you there.”

That smile disappeared. “Why not?”

He managed to shuffle his shoulders and look intently at a cork board nearby where all the bulletins were tacked up. “He threw me in the water when he finally caught up to me, and I don’t want anyone to see that.”

Sam laughed and slapped a thigh like he had just told the greatest joke. He supposed that watching Captain America and the Winter Soldier splashing around trying to fight each other soaking wet at five in the morning would be very amusing. “Now I’m definitely showing up and I’m bringing a camera, man. The world has got to see two super-soldiers puddle jumping like a couple of kids.”

It was easier now that they were on a topic that was mostly facts and not about anything to do with what he remembered and how he felt. He didn’t really think much about how he leaned back against the wall, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, and it wasn’t until Sam set down the box that he realized that the man actually intended to talk to him, not just let him slink off again. He didn’t have many conversations outside of Steve, but it felt… good. It was freeing if a little awkward.

“I can see why Steve likes you,” he said softly.

“Man, Steve likes almost everyone,” Sam replied with a head shake. “However, he’s an over-protective ninny when you’re involved. He’s already called me twice to say you were coming down like he expected you to get lost. He even asked me to call him when you arrived. How come he doesn’t have you on a GPS beeper anyway?”

The obvious answer would be because Steve could never hope to keep one on him. It might even be truer that he was untrackable because he liked it that way. However, he forced himself to accept that Steve worried after him.

Steve had been even more protective since the meet up with Rumlow a few days ago, constantly looking out for him like he was going to rush off and strangle some woman drinking coffee or kick some kids into trees to savage them while they were stunned. He knew it would fade in time, but right now, he gritted his teeth. He had control of his instincts, but… he was tired, weary of the constant need to keep on top of himself and a darkness lurked inside of him.

The other man was still looking at him expectantly, and he decided to go with an answer that would keep things lighter. It was all untruth anyway, just poking fun of the fact that his friend was so out of time. “As if Steve could figure out how to work one. He can barely handle the microwave.” Steve was a very quick learner even with technology.

Sam smiled indulgently at him. “He still have a dial phone?”

“No, he can handle buttons and touch screens, but sometimes he gets confused when there isn’t an operator on the other end to connect his call,” he replied in what he struggled to put dryly, earning yet another laugh out of Sam. A slow faint attempt at a smile was teased from him in reply.

“Look at you,” Sam suddenly said, eyeing his expression as if his face might just break in half. “I think that’s the first smile I’ve ever seen on you.” The attempt at smiling immediately disappeared.

“This is the first time we’ve met when I wasn’t…” he trailed off, not certain if making light of their previous confrontations was appropriate.

Instead of being awkward with him, Sam suddenly jabbed an open hand at him. “Then we clearly need to be properly introduced. I’m Samuel Thomas Wilson, ex-Pararescue with the 58th squadron and guidance councilor here at the VA, also known under the Falcon codename.”

Slowly, he reached out with his right hand and took Sam’s, giving it a shake. “I…” he stumbled because he wasn’t used to introducing himself as anything, hadn’t accepted his old name back. However, the other man just kept shaking his hand like it was all fine and waited. “I’m… James Buchanan Barnes… ex-Sergeant of the 107th infantry and ex-Howling Commandos sniper.” He said each slowly, but Sam just kept shaking his hand as if waiting, smiling encouragingly. “A-and… The Winter Soldier.” He said his last title very fast and very soft.

It was only then that Sam released his hand. “Sometimes it takes saying it to realize all that you’ve accomplished.”

He wouldn’t call reciting his name an accomplishment, especially when he still couldn’t remember most of what he had done. Only some of his strong memories of Steve had come through lately. He said nothing about that though, just flexed his hand at his side, the sensation of a firm handshake still lingering.

“I should go,” he finally said in the silence that followed because he could offer nothing else.

“Do you want a tour of the place?”

“Steve is expecting me,” he replied carefully.

Sam issued a snort and waved at him to follow, and he reluctantly stepped over the abandoned box of books and records and followed Steve’s friend. He was shown empty rooms mostly, though there were more than a few information pamphlets on post-traumatic stress disorder, financial aid, carrier options for ex-military personnel, a few on substance abuse, housing options and many more. He drank it in as they passed the boards.

He was even introduced to the receptionist desk where three young women worked. He could tell they were ex-military in some capacity because they didn’t shy from him when he stared at them. In fact, one of them offered her number despite the fact he said nothing at all, which earned him a ribbing from Sam.

“You give them a hard-eyed stare like a master, and Denise is throwing herself after you,” Sam joked as they returned to where they had left Sam’s box of things. “You should call her.”

“I’d rather eat glass,” he replied stiffly. Conversations with people he knew, who would probe into his life slowly and carefully was what he needed right now, not a date. 

Though, something about the situation where he earned numbers by doing so very little sat right with him. He mulled it over silently as Sam tried to be sneaky about slipping Denise’s number into his pocket. It wasn’t much in the way of stealth, but he didn’t react as he normally would. He would throw it out when he left this place.

“I should go,” he finally said for the third time, this time meaning it. While these people were fine for him to be around for the most part, he was weary from guarding himself from the walk here and for what would be the walk back to Steve’s place. “Call Steve and tell him to stop worrying when I go.”

“Can I tell him about your date?”

“Do you want to eat glass?” There wasn’t as much hard intent as he normally would have put into it, but he saw Sam’s eyebrows go up.

“Man, you need that date more than I thought,” Same replied with a smile. “And you should come back here, meet some other veterans. I know a few people who would really like seeing your arm.”

The Winter Soldier narrowed his eyes dangerously. “No.”

“They’re all men and women who have lost a limb or more,” Sam said, carrying on as if he hadn’t refused. “They sometimes play card games after meetings. I think they would like seeing your prosthetic, show them there’s hope they can go back to having a little more of what was lost.”

He stilled and his eyes dropped to the floor. There were no models like his Soviet and HYDRA made metal arm, nothing on the market anyway. Yet, he admitted there was a pull to see how other people handled the loss when he had long ago accepted it. He was perfectly functional, but were other people? He had never paid attention to other amputees before, mostly because people who were not functional were not part of HYDRA long. There were no prisoners, just pain and order.

He glanced at Sam through his curtain of hair, noting the other man was watching him serenely, waiting like a spider for a fly to get a little closer before pouncing. “I’ll consider it.”

“That’s great, I’ll let them know you’re coming,” Sam said with a big smile that made his stomach drop. He couldn’t punch the man smiling like that. “And I’ll pass along the times and dates to Steve when I talk to him. Oh… you don’t mind I introduce you as James, right?”

He shrugged non-commitally because he didn’t care. He instead turned away because he suspected he’d be dragged into another conversation topic if he didn’t try to make his escape. He could see why Steve liked Sam so much.

“And you can sit in on any meeting you want while you’re around. We’re all pretty open here,” Sam called after him as he stalked away.

He suspected that Sam insisted because the man knew he followed orders better than most. They lodged a little more deeply in his mind for him to consider when compared to simple conversation, though he was slowly getting better. He still was more alert for order than suggestion, though most of what Sam had presented him with had been suggestion overlayed with order. He liked to tell himself that he wouldn’t go back, but it seemed he was at least committed to seeing the amputees.

Out in the street, he kept his hands deep into his pockets, his head down so that the visor of his cap blocked out most of the people that he passed in the street. He kept as close to the storefronts, slipping around small pockets of people, only picking up bits and pieces of their idle chatter. He forced himself to focus on his feet and the meeting with Sam rather than the crowds of people peering in glass windows, talking on their phones or just plain being inattentive and in the way.

He finally slipped down an alleyway, stepping over two sleeping homeless men. It was darker down here, the lack of general public allowing him to use the area find a less crowded street to walk on to Steve’s place. It was easier on him when he was jumping on rooftops or was focusing on a mission; he hardly considered going back to Steve’s place any kind of mission. He was just on edge lately, that was all, needed a mission or an order or something. Anything to distract from the subtly growing swirl of emotions he didn’t feel ready to deal with.

Yet, the Winter Soldier stopped when a dirty old man stepped out from behind the dumpster he had been about to pass. His eyes flicked to the knife held at him, but his awareness was more fixed on the two men that he had previously passed rising and boxing him in.

“Your wallet.”

“I don’t have one,” he replied coldly.

The knife was brandished more forcefully. “Just give up your money and we’ll let you go.”

Brilliant, he was being robbed by a trio of drunkards that had no idea who or what he was. He narrowed his eyes, assessing the three quickly and then stood taller, his hands slipping from his pockets to hang at his sides. “I don’t have any.”

“Watch then.”

“Don’t have one of those either.”

“Don’t fucking lie!” The man with the knife walked forward threateningly. They clearly had no idea that he really had none of the objects that they demanded of him.

One of the men behind him suddenly lurched forward to grab at his pockets, but his metal hand snapped up to seize that man by the throat and lift the grubby bum off the ground with an ease that made the other man behind him hesitate.

“Leave me alone,” he said simply but full of menace. “I don’t have anything you are demanding.”

The man with the knife slashed at him, spitting profanity at him as the distant closed. He threw the struggling man in his hold onto the knife-wielding one, knocking them both over to the ground where more cursing sounded but the top man only struggled a little before going still. Someone was an idiot with a knife clearly.

He shot a look at the third who backed up, but the look he was thrown had his blood heating quickly in his veins. He knew what it meant before the other man simply broke in fear. He recognized the need, the feeling of darkness rising in him, and it would consume him if this last man fled. He fought mentally to control it, but part of him just wanted the freedom. He was so weary of ignoring every urge that swept through him.

“If you run, I will kill you,” he growled. Half of him wanted the man to anyway just to be able to carry out his threat, just to let loose.

The man just shook that grubby head and backed away, retreating but not running. He was almost disappointed, but he kept his own word on the matter, turning his attention down to the instigator with the knife who had crawled out from under the weight of the other, who hadn’t moved.

“You son of a bitch!”

The Winter Soldier didn’t even have to try as he lifted his left arm lazily, the knife deflecting off of it, though his jacket was sliced open. His right hand slammed into the man’s chest, caving ribs and cutting off the cry of pain in mid-shout. He even caught the knife as it was dropped, spinning the old grimy hilt around his metal palm and grabbed the gasping dying target with his right hand. He stepped in and began to stab even though it wasn’t necessary. The bum would die from the collapsed lungs, but the blood pounded in his ears, his vision narrowed as it never had before as he stabbed and stabbed.

His anger seeped through him in a frightening way, red and hot, reacting to every frustration that he had taken, chewed down, of the memories lost, of the abuse suffered by HYDRA, of wanting to be James but unable, of Rumlow skirting him so far and every other little detail that had lodged like a glass shard of emotion into him. He had never been angry before, not as the Winter Soldier who was cold and deadly and predated on the weak. This was vicious and searing with heat and a lack of control. He stabbed out that emotion until there was nothing left inside of him and barely anything left of the man who had tried to rob him.

It was in realizing what he had done, how he had lost control that had him inhaling sharply. Yet, the cold took over a moment later as he simply tossed the maimed body into the dumpster, added the other unfortunate victim along the knife. His left hand was bloody, so were his clothes, but he only removed his jacket to wipe off his bloody hands and face and then dumped it in the trash as well.

Slowly, he turned and looked back at the last remaining robber who stared at his metal arm with a horror filled fascination. “This didn’t happen. You didn’t see me, and if I find out you said anything, I’ll be back for you.”

The Winter Soldier tucked his hands into his trouser pockets and simply walked casually from the alleyway into a lesser street. Once he was around the corner, he stopped and leaned against the brick wall. He didn’t shake, didn’t feel much of anything for the act that he had done except to acknowledge that Steve would be horribly disappointed, probably even angry.

He had killed. Not only had he killed, but he had lost control in a situation he could have as easily brushed the men aside with minor injuries. That situation was his to control, but there was no order even in himself to stand down. A part of him was relieved to _finally_ release the coil of tension that had grown inside of him.

“Brock…” he whispered as he leaned his head back against the wall. “Where are you?”

Rumlow would understand, would probably have snarled an order followed closely with a cuffing to reset his programming. Or… his handler would have snuck in behind him, smoothing a hand around his own and they could have killed together.

He shuddered and pressed his flesh hand against his face. He needed to be empty again; the pressure was getting too much, too fast. He wasn’t allowed to lose control, and that anger… it was going to consume him again.

He needed order. He needed…

“Brock,” he whispered, staring at his own fingers. “And Steve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and as always, all comments and kudos are appreciated.


	7. A Necessity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little delayed while I write the last chapter, which I am endlessly nervous about. I want it to fit into the rest of the fic but perhaps still be the best chapter of the bunch, so I have to take my time with it.
> 
> This chapter like all the others hasn't been beta-read, so I apologize for any mistakes found therein.

***

Alexander Pierce had gotten a nice comfy office with a panoramic view of the city after being convinced by Nick Fury to come out of semi-retirement to head the new World Security Council. He had been to said office maybe twice before, but he had to admire how far the old man had gone with a degree in some political nonsense and probably eighteen diplomas on how to bullshit people. Actually, knowing Pierce, the guy had probably written some kind of Master’s thesis on the best way to bullshit people and make them think it was still a five-course meal.

Still, Brock had to admit that the office was nice and having a serious secretary with sexy legs was a perk too. His full combat gear and dirty boots obviously wasn’t going to endear himself to her, and it was clear based on a glance that she was divorced fairly recently. She probably could have done with a good lay at this point, but the ruggedly handsome type wasn’t for her clearly. At least she tried to fake a smile when she told him that Pierce now had time to see him.

Well yeah, he had a meeting at oh-eight-hundred and it was currently oh-seven-fifty-nine. By the time he crossed the threshold of the door, it would put him exactly on time.

He walked into the room and moved to stand in front of the glass desk, his hands folded behind his back and his eyes straight ahead. He could see with a single glance that Pierce was reading some kind of foreign newsrag. There was a stack of them to the man’s right elbow, which happened to also have a steaming mug of tea next to it.

The office was large but not in a way that spoke of a need for excess space. The room was furnished with bookshelves that were stacked neatly with tomes. There were two chairs in front of the desk, a pair of couches behind him and a nifty expensive coffee table in between. There was a safe behind the picture to his left, but most of the remaining walls were open windows to allow the bright sunlight inside to illuminate the office and make it seem more warm and impressive.

“Grab a cup of tea, Agent Rumlow,” Pierce said with an air of distraction as if there was something interesting in that newsrag.

Brock knew that more attention was on him than the writing in that paper, but he shifted and marched over to the wall where a kettle and some tea leaves had been set out. It was the stuff he would suffer to drink, non-caffeinated and dark like his hair. It probably cost more than his daily salary too, but he made himself some and didn’t bother to ask if Pierce wanted a refill. His observation of the desk was telling that the man didn’t need one, and like always, it was a test. Everything with Pierce was somehow a test.

He stirred some milk into the tea with a stick and returned to his previous position in front of the head of HYDRA’s desk. He took the seat when there was a hand gesture to do so, setting his tea and saucer on his knee like he as some prim shit of the office. 

Slowly Alexander Pierce folded the paper and set it aside, topping the pile that was already there to the right. They remained in silence, he waiting for his tea to cool and Pierce pulling the cup and saucer closer and stirring it like this was just another office meeting. There was no need to break the silence, so he just occasionally stirred his tea and looked around the room again.

“You are a patient man,” Pierce finally said just as he had raised his cup to drink from it. “Eight years you have served with only a single complaint in that time, and you’ve proven yourself both trustworthy and cunning. You’ve taken every order I’ve given you and fulfilled it to best of a man’s ability to do so, a rare skill these days. You’re also the most reliable handler that I’ve seen with our asset.”

Brock had been given his share of ass-pats in his life, had even received one or two from Pierce himself, but this was different. He felt like he was glowing, his ego swelling up inside of him like a little kid being told he’d just gotten an A on the hardest test in all of school. He kept himself occupied taking little sips of hot tea to hide his smirk, but he knew that nothing slipped by the old man in front of him. His eyes gave him away as he peered over the rim of his cup, hungry for more authority but still the patience to allow it to come to him.

“I spoke with the asset yesterday,” Pierce said in a conversational tone. It made him freeze in his seat because he had decommissioned the asset. There would have… oh shit. “You gave him your name.”

“Yes sir,” he said as his cup returned to the saucer. There was no point denying it.

“When?” The old man’s expression was perfectly unreadable.

“Eight months ago during the elimination of his former team mission,” Brock said tonelessly. He couldn’t tell if he was in trouble or not, so he kept himself in neutral gear.

Alexander considered him for a long time before a slow smile appeared on the man’s craggy face. “The mission where you suffered injuries, wasn’t it? Yes, I remember that.” He knew Pierce wouldn’t have forgotten it; he had gotten a talking to about the clean up on that place. The bathtub pipes had to be replaced. “You ordered the asset to shred a man then too, didn’t you?”

It hadn’t been an order, and he knew it. Yet, Pierce worded it in such a way to test him for honesty; he was certain the asset had reported directly what had happened then. “It wasn’t an order,” he said neutrally, like it was no big deal.

“No?”

“No, the Winter Soldier and I shredded that man together, hand-in-hand like a couple at a dance,” he replied remorselessly.

“And how did the asset handle that?” He shifted in his chair, uncertain why this was suddenly coming up now when it happened months ago. “Was he treating you normally with the respect and attentiveness due to a handler?”

Brock stared across the desk at Pierce, his hands on his cup of tea and saw shrewdly where this conversation was going. He knew the old man wanted to know the events that lead up to him giving his name, wanted to know if he had compromised himself and the asset at the same time. A first time was easy to correct, to overlook as a single incidence, but he had given his name now twice to the asset. That was making a trend, and Pierce had such a good handle on trends that it was frightening.

“He tried to kiss me,” he finally answered.

“I see.”

“I boxed off the behaviour, sir,” he put in almost aggressively. “I washed him up, and he kicked the shit out of me in the bedroom, like ordered.”

“And then you gave him your name.” Pierce raised both eyebrows at him.

“Yes, I gave him my name, but I didn’t give him one.” It wasn’t like the clarification mattered, but he thought it was important that he hadn’t crossed the line far enough to see the asset as more than a weapon. Until two days ago really, and he had struggled all night with that. He had the bruises on his chest and legs to prove it where he had sparred harder than usual, punishing himself with pain.

There was a silence in which they both went back to sipping at their tea cups. He suspected the silence was to let him sit in his own confessions, like he would feel guilty for what he had done. He didn’t; he had been disgusted with himself, but he hadn’t regretted it. He let Pierce see that and if the guy sent him to the ass-end of Russian to get killed off, then so be it. He had a handle on the asset.

Pierce slowly extended a hand and rubbed a manicured nail against the glass top as if there was a spot of dirt there. “You see a mistake, don’t you? You experienced an incident that shook the asset to the core, shared with him a moment in time so moving that he overrode his own programming to physically attach himself to you.” He didn’t squirm in his seat, but he suddenly was pretty damn close. “And then you washed him, not punished him, I might add. You took him to another room and you gave him opportunity to best you and when it was all said and done, when his programming had cracks in it, you gave the Winter Soldier something to set you apart from the rest: your name.”

Explained in such a way, so far outside of the incident, Brock could see exactly what he had done. His eyes fixed on Pierce’s face, but it was unreadable, and he lifted his cup and saucer to the table and shifted off of his chair so his knees hit the floor hard enough to bruise. He bowed his head, barely avoiding clocking himself on the side of the desk and prostrated himself in front of the head of HYDRA. He deserved to be punished.

“Explain your mistake,” Alexander ordered him while taking another sip of tea.

“I didn’t punish the asset when it was an incident that required it,” Brock said hollowly. This was going to earn him a bullet and a shallow grave.

“What did you do instead?”

“I positively reinforced his behaviour, and I gave him grounds to work outside the parameters of his programming.” He stared at the white marble floors, so like the ones in that bank where the asset had charged up to him on his impression showing. He had barely scraped away with his life on that. “And… I deepened my impression with the Winter Soldier.”

Alexander Pierce rose from his chair, abandoning tea cups, newspapers and work desk to come around to his side of the room. He remained on his hands and knees staring at the floor, but his gaze could pick out the edges of the old man’s shoes. Pierce was perfectly set in kicking range and had a clear shot at his ribs or abdomen. He knew he deserved more than a kick; he wanted it honestly. The pain would be something to order himself around.

The kick came hard and fast to his ribs, and his weight rolled with the blow and returned to his previous position. It hurt, but he simply bit his lower lip. Another kick came and hit the same place; Pierce had always been an accurate old bastard, able to hit the same spot more often than not. A third finally cracked something and was hard enough to knock him onto his side. He rolled onto his back, gasping in pain but not holding his side. He knew better than that.

A foot encased in a shoe worth more than his life pressed on his left knee threateningly. Brock didn’t say a word against it. He too busy gasping for enough breath and each one came with stabs of excruciating pain.

“Agent Rumlow.”

“Sir?” His voice croaked, and he hated himself.

“Brock.” The sudden change from formal to informal shocked him enough that he winced when he jerked up a bit to see the expression on Pierce’s face. “I should kill you, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes sir, you should.”

“But I won’t.”

“Yes sir.” He inhaled a short breath, feeling weak and hating himself for it.

It wasn’t out of any sense of relief that he acknowledged that he would live to see another day. He didn’t thank Pierce either, had never thanked the man for a thing in his life. He earned what he received whether it was acknowledgement or pain, so there was no need for the paltry words of thanks for things that he had earned himself on his own merit or faults.

“Get up off my clean floor,” Alexander ordered, removing the foot from his knee and walking away to the couch to sit there instead.

Brock rolled over and struggled to his feet, hissing breathes as he did so and tasting blood from where he had bitten the inside of his cheek. He walked over to the couch and took the seat opposite to Pierce, aware this was just as much punishment because he sank a bit into the cushion and any shifting would bounce him just enough to flare the pain in his ribs. He wanted to hold them but wasn’t about to appear weak in front of Pierce. He savoured the pain because it meant he was still alive.

Pierce, as always, was cool and collected as if the incident had passed the man’s notice and they had moved on to something else. “I was about your age when I had an incident of similar merit with the asset. Like you, my superiors found out about it and like you, I took my knocks because of it. I deserved it as you deserved what I gave you.”

He said nothing. There was no invitation to speak, and he was silently shocked the Pierce – old, in control, collected Pierce – had an incident anywhere close to his.

“There is a point in certain handlers’ careers where some find a line, and they cross it usually unknowingly. Humans may be weak and require the illusion of safety and control taken from them, but we are very curious creatures.” Pierce leaned back in the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. “Three handlers have crossed that line, four now with you. Each of those handlers had gone on to take full-time control of the asset.”

Brock couldn’t help but stiffen in surprise, though he kept the expression off of his face. There was a silence, an invitation to speak if he wanted to take it. “Full-time control, as in… setting and giving the orders of the missions?”

“Yes,” Alexander said and the smile that appeared might actually have been something close to genuine. “I’m getting old, Brock. I’ve retained control of the asset for many years, and I will for more years to come, but I’m not a fool either. Age will take me, and I have to have a replacement.”

He was going to be that replacement. “When have you known it would be me?”

“I’ve always known it would be you from the very moment that you put your hand on the Winter Soldier,” Pierce replied as if it were just fact. “Your impression day was just that… impressive. Only one other of the candidates realized what the point of the exercise was, and he was in there bathing the asset with help. You alone took him in hand and interacted with him as a handler should with a new weapon. You were also the only one to insist on staying with him, putting yourself in position to be killed in the dark. We all know the asset works best in the dark.”

Brock found himself nodding almost stupidly, and the occasional hiccup of pain escaped him when he fixed himself too much on Pierce’s words. This was all information he had suspected but never could confirm.

“You lived and better the asset showed that he accepted you, that there was a certain degree of comfort staying close to you. The drug trial… you alone earned a response from him, though two never gave him opportunity to. When he went to you and refused anyone else until both of us convinced him, I knew that you would surpass even what I could do with him on missions.” The words were probably better than compliment. No one surpassed Pierce it seemed.

“Why didn’t you punish him for continually going to me that day?” He admitted curiosity, which apparently was human nature.

Alexander regarded him shrewdly for a long moment, those blue eyes taking his measure. “I couldn’t.” The words sank like a stone in water. “The point of the exercise was to show impression level, but the asset was still highly impressionable right then; he always is after drug trials.”

He remembered well what Pierce had said that day… when positive reinforcement turned to positive punishment, the bond between weapon and handler would degrade. “While it’s meaningless, if it had gone on longer, I suspect he would have returned to you over and over again. He’s always shown preference to you as he shows preference to me.”

“Out of the two of us, who has the stronger impression?”

“You mean, who would the asset follow if we both gave him an order?” Pierce laughed, but he couldn’t join in and wasn’t certain that he wanted to. “That would be me, Brock. I have more experience, but your time will come.”

Brock wasn’t a man who felt let down by simple things, and he simply took the idea that Pierce would be listened to more than him as a challenge to do better in the future. Obviously, he wasn’t going to be eliminated, so he would have opportunity to see the asset again.

Yet, one thing tugged at him, one thing he knew made them different from the others. “What was your incident?”

Alexander regarded him for a long moment, leaving them both in silence and reminding Rumlow that he was still at Pierce’s mercy if the man wanted to take another piece out of him for toeing the line. He just wondered how a man as curious as Pierce could lose control of a situation that would end up similar to his own. He considered the old man rather untouchable, though he knew that even Pierce had to have started close to the same level that he had.

“It was a mission in China, and it went well enough, I suppose. The objectives were carried out and the asset returned to me as planned, but during the extraction, the Chinese military found us and opened fire. The asset attacked with my order; there would be no witnesses.” That was standard protocol when the asset was involved after all. “I took a bullet, nothing major, but it slowed me. And then I took another. The asset stepped in to take the third meant for me, and he grabbed me up and took me off, leaving two witnesses behind. I was… near unconscious so I couldn’t order him back to finish the job.”

By now, Brock was leaning his elbows on his knees listening intently. Pierce had never ever told any story of the time the man was handler, not of missions anyway. It was like finally getting a look into the life of another well-seasoned handler.

Pierce smirked at him and paused, testing his patience. Finally, “I woke up in some dirty old hovel, the bullets dug out of me, my wounds washed and bandaged and the asset sleeping on top of me. He’s heavy, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, heavier than he looks anyway.” It was like the asset was filled with rocks rather than muscle.

“You must understand… I’d lost a lot of blood, and I was confused. Probably as confused as the asset himself,” Pierce said. He nodded his acceptance. “He was the only familiar thing for me, so I touched him.” Brock stiffened in his chair. Like touched him… or _touched_ him? “We comforted each other, I suppose. Simple human contact, and I, like you, told him my name. Worse, I called him by one. Naturally, we were extracted two days later.”

“You survived.”

“Barely,” Alexander admitted with a small smirk. “I suspect only my flawless track record and the fact that I was high in SHIELD saved me.”

“Is that what saved me?”

“It played a part,” Pierce said. “But I knew better as well; I knew you’d have to have an incident to move beyond the simple playing rules that were set down for handlers. And now you’ve had it.”

Brock folded his hands together in front of him, still resting his elbows on his knees and avoiding moving his torso much to avoid getting distracted by the pain. He was aware that Pierce wasn’t just referring to the incident eight months ago but the previous mission where he had crossed a line within himself. Obviously Pierce had crossed that line the same time as the asset had. In that they were different. The asset had trusted him before he had trusted the asset in some regards.

Alexander suddenly leaned forward from the couch and opened a hidden drawer in the coffee table, pulling out an old folder from within. The writing on the top of the folder was very obviously in Cyrillic, but Pierce only reached inside and extracted an old worn dog-eared photo of a smiling young man in uniform. He leaned closer and froze as he recognized the asset’s face.

“Every man starts somewhere,” Alexander said softly. “Even weapons with the face of men.”

“Who…?”

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, former United States military.” There was a pause to let the information sink in, the importance of such information. “The man before the weapon was born in 1917.” Brock couldn’t help but meet Pierce’s gaze. “He was known most before his ‘death’ for being the best friend of HYDRA’s greatest enemy, Captain America.”

Well, of course he knew the story of Captain America; it was in every history book when it came to the Second World War, the man who defeated the Red Skull and forced HYDRA underground. He might have even recognized the idea of a best friend if he hadn’t known the asset for eight years, hadn’t seen the things that the weapon was capable of. Yet… he understood and appreciated the difference between the man and the weapon.

Slowly, he reached out with a wince and picked up the picture to examine it closer. That face was ageless, no doubt thanks to the cryo-freezing. It would no doubt go on being ageless for as long as HYDRA kept a hand on the asset.

“What do you know about Captain America?” Pierce was gazing at him with benign interest.

He stared at the old man over the top of the photo before shrugging his shoulders a little. “He was some nobody who managed to get treated with a serum that made him a big muscled guy who people put their hopes into. He raised bonds first and then went overseas and started fighting. He went toe-to-toe with the Red Skull and eventually took down most of HYDRA. He threw his life away burying an explosive ladened bomber into the Arctic ice and water.”

Alexander nodded as if the information was all correct. “The abridged version, yes,” was the reply. “Captain America was exposed to a very specific serum enhancement made by Dr. Erskine, who had once worked in Germany and helped create the Red Skull’s appearance and traits. Captain America was best known for his first exploit disobeying direct orders and going into hostile territory to recover hundreds of men in an enslavement camp, but what the interviews don’t say is one the single biggest flaw to the man’s character.”

Brock blinked. How did a national icon like that have a flaw wading into enemy territory? “The flaw?”

“Captain Rogers never went to that facility to free other men, though he happened to do so being a noble individual. No, he went only to save one man, his best friend assumed dead.” His eyes dropped to the picture in his hand. “He became a national hero on a selfish whim.”

The irony of the Winter Soldier was not lost on Rumlow in that telling, and he stared at the smiling face and wondered if this was what the asset would look like if the weapon was even capable of smiling. He passed a gloved thumb over the image before setting it back down on the table. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Rogers isn’t dead.” It was kind of like a bomb going off.

“But…”

“He was frozen and sealed in ice and has only recently been discovered, and he is being thawed right now as I speak to you here.” Alexander gave a cool smirk. “I, of course, knowing nothing of thawing techniques provided medical staff to help the process and learn, but really, I need to know how functional he is.”

Brock didn’t understand why Pierce wanted the greatest danger to HYDRA alive and walking around again. He had a sensation that it was going to have something to do with him though, and he knew that it had bearing on the asset as well. Two men, frozen in time, would destroy each other or unite against them. It seemed very risky in his mind, but he didn’t have all the facts either.

“For now, my good friend Nick wants to keep Captain America contained for a few months to get him up to speed on the changed times. I suspect that they will pressure Rogers into joining SHIELD eventually.” Pierce gave him a pointed look, and he felt his ribs twinge with pain. “I want you to work with him, get to know him, learn if he can be swayed or used for our cause, even unwittingly.”

He nodded, understanding the mission better than most. His ability to handle the asset meant that he was going to have to use his quick wits to make an impression on a weapon that had no behaviour modification at all. Like the Winter Soldier he controlled now, there was always the chance that every encounter with Rogers was going to be his last.

Brock Rumlow was a man who knew and accepted his limitations. He was not like Pierce to rise in HYDRA politically as he didn’t have the temperament or the education for it. He was a soldier, and that gave him a different kind of advantage because he was a man of action and could posture all the same like every other soldier. He walked the walk, talked the talk, was effective and quick-witted. However, like Pierce, he knew how to choose his words. He wondered if it would be enough for this mission.

His attention was drawn back to Pierce as the man took the photo off the table and tucked it back into the file, which in turn was slipped back into the secret drawer. Their eyes met a moment later.

“Your new mission doesn’t begin until Rogers is accessible, but I will provide reading material to bring you up to speed,” Alexander said in a business-like way. “However, until then, you will be accompanying me to witness a new round of potential handlers. The asset will be yours to command for it.”

He sat up more, his injured ribs protesting the entire way. He had to inhale sharply to keep from making a noise, but this was exactly what he wanted. “You’re mentoring me?”

“Yes, so I hope you value the fact that you have no social life. You’re about to be very busy,” Pierce said with a smirk and Brock just smirked back.

Life was setting up exactly as he wanted it to. Two assets, a mentorship, a high position in HYDRA and SHIELD, and he was still apparently on top of his game. What could possibly go wrong?

***

“How do you think he’s doing?” Steve glanced at his friend standing nearby.

Sam was silent for a time, gazing into the room full of about twenty-five veterans who were in various stages of playing games of cards. Each of those veterans had lost some or multiple limbs and not all of them had had them replaced either. There were crutches leaned on chairs, wheelchairs pushed up to tables, prosthetics knocking against floor, table or chair legs, but all the members were in either quiet conversation, obvious chuckling or in various states of competition with each other. It wasn’t even just the young one either, since the age was from twenty all the way up to eighty-four… well, ninety-six if Bucky was included.

Steve buried his hands deeper into his pockets as he also found himself looking into the room, unwilling to disturb the moment. He was only pleased that Bucky had come back here beyond the first meeting, had visited in with the amputees twice now. He had come to pick his friend up at Bucky’s request, which seemed odd to him but he had been happy to come and spend time at the VA anyway.

“I don’t know, man. He’s not like any other war vet I’ve dealt with, yet at the same time, he’s just like them,” Sam muttered. There was something in the way that the other man watched Bucky seated at the table with the other amputees that made him shift his weight on his feet. “He’s most comfortable with them, I will say.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t normally let his guard down with anyone,” Steve agreed.

“He does with you.”

He shrugged his shoulders, though he couldn’t help the sensation of pleasure at the observation. Sometimes he forgot how easy it was to feel comfortable with Bucky. “We have a lot of history, that’s all.”

“Which he can’t remember,” Sam replied with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s… coming back quicker now,” he said with what he hoped was a bright smile. It was true that Bucky was remembering things, mostly deeply engrained things like how they used to wrestle or sometimes an old motion of a hand or expression.

He felt the weight of Sam’s gaze on him, but he kept that smile plastered on his face as he looked into the room where the soft sound of chatter was broken up by a sudden howl of laughter from one of the other tables. He noted the oldest veteran and Bucky didn’t even lift their heads to look, that they seemed to sit most comfortably together. They were after all closer in age than anyone else.

“Steve.” Sam was using that ‘counselor’ tone of voice, soft and open, not prying but willing to listen.

“It’s nothing.”

“C’mon man, you can’t pull that on me,” Sam replied in that same soft voice. He hadn’t realized how much it worked on him until he found his and Bucky’s gazes meet and his friend offered a slow blink of blue eyes, ascent and acknowledgement that he was there. “Steve, you can talk to me.”

Steve swallowed hard and looked down at his feet. “I think it’s coming back too fast,” he said and shook his head a bit. “I mean, I should be glad that it’s coming back, the memories, the old Bucky, but there is so much… Winter Soldier in there, so much damage, so much pain in him. I can see it’s eating at him, and I worry… I wonder if it’s overwhelming him.”

There, it was out. He had accepted that the memories would come in their own way, at their own pace and in whatever order that whatever life seemed to cause recall for his friend. Of course, he knew that Rumlow’s warning had also tainted some of his perceptions, and he watched the way that Bucky moved through the few crowds of people that they encountered. It was like watching a wolf pass through a herd of bleating sheep, but a wolf only picked out prey when it was hungry and there was opportunity.

He had seen how Bucky’s jaw tightened, how fingers clenched in his friend’s jacket pockets, how the set of shoulders changed particularly when it was someone showing signs of weakness that he just normally ignored. The bowing of a head, the shrill giggle of a gaggle of girls, the bolt of a man rushing to cross a street before the next wave of cars, a little boy being tugged along by his distracted mother, the bump of an arm against Bucky’s as they moved against each other in the full swell of people. He had even seen a barking dog tied outside of a convenient store back off and piss itself when Bucky had deign to notice it and stare. And it was that those incidences were increasing because he couldn’t keep his friend from living life.

The Winter Soldier had no mercy, had no weakness, a perfect weapon. Not only had the files seemed to take joy in indicating that, but he had seen those same concepts in Rumlow’s words and tone, even in those things left unsaid. And the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes was a single person, jamming together two lives into one. Perhaps the worst part was the frightening acknowledgement that Bucky was the Winter Soldier, that he had seen faint signs of that ‘asset’ back in the war. Of course, it had been war and Bucky had seen two more years of it than he had at the time. War made people do terrible things. War could bring out a cruelty and a coldness.

Now that the line between Bucky and the Winter Soldier was blurring more and more as memories returned, he could deny it even less. That didn’t mean that he had given up on his friend in any way. He just knew he was reaching the limits of how he could _help_ Bucky because he certainly wasn’t a counselor nor was he a head-doctor. Everyone called it post-traumatic stress disorder, but that hadn’t existed in their age. Men accepted what happened and lived what life they could. They didn’t have terms for it, for the men who became shadows of themselves, drank themselves to death, took their own lives or just disappeared.

Steve was suddenly drawn from his deep thoughts and found Sam watching him silently. He managed a tight smile, finding one returned to him knowingly. He sighed and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck as he found his eyes straying to Bucky who was once again letting a few people examine and touch his metal arm.

“Has he hurt anyone?” It was a quiet question, but it caused him to sigh all the same.

“No, he controls himself remarkably well,” Steve replied softly. “He acted strange when he came home from the VA the first time, but I figured he was just getting used to the idea you asked him back. I don’t think anyone’s done that for him.”

Sam nodded absently and a slow smile appeared on the man’s face at the group surrounding Bucky. “He’s good with them, you know.”

“They’ve all seen the same side of loss that he has,” Steve agreed.

“He gives them hope. They can’t get enough of that arm, always asking when he’s going to be coming back so they can look at it again.” There was a sense of sadness in Sam’s voice, no doubt remembering more than a few friends who might have suffered the same. “And I think he comforts them.”

Steve couldn’t help but be startled by the idea. “Comforts them how so?”

“They don’t have a weakness around him,” Sam replied softly. People were starting to get up to prepare to go home now. “If he’s this big ultimate predator, I think they know it, but unlike everyone else, he protects them from the heckles, the looks, the infirmity. He stands tall; he’s one of them, broken but not beaten.”

“And you ask me if I write my speeches ahead of time,” he said with a pleased smile. Is that really what those twenty-five people felt?

“First time he was here earlier this week, he just picked up Brianna from her wheelchair and tucked her nice and safe in her car. Never seen anyone fold a wheelchair that fast and secure it either.” He knew that story had to involve the red-haired woman who had lost both of her legs from mid-thigh down. She had burns on the side of her face and neck too, but no one denied she was pretty anyway. “If she wasn’t married, I think she’d totally crush on James.”

Steve snorted softly, amused by the idea. There was the old Bucky right there, charming women with just a glance, a thoughtless action or even the simple way that his friend moved. “Denise still interested?”

“Oh yeah, bats her eyelashes at him every time he shows up,” Sam replied dead-pan. “He’s probably going to sneak in windows soon enough.”

“I asked if he was going to ask her out,” Steve said conversationally.

“He still using the _’I’d rather eat glass’_ mantra?” Both of them looked at each other and laughed, which was answer enough.

By then, the veterans were leaving in groups, still chatting together but all of them waved to Sam and by extension him. He had never seen a calmer group of people, but his eyes caught on Bucky who was leaned close to the old wrinkled man. There was nothing on his friend’s expression to give away what the subject matter was, but he saw the old man gripping Bucky’s flesh arm as tight at the man probably could.

He nudged Sam and nodded his head towards the scene, but the dark-skinned man seemed unsurprised. They watched the scene as unobtrusively as possible, and soon enough those two were the last ones in the room. Bucky seemed entirely focused on what the old man had to say, head tilted politely towards the veteran’s lips, but Steve noted his metal fingers were curling and uncurling in what should have been an absent gesture. He wasn’t so certain that it was.

“Have you considered urging him to see a psychologist,” Sam asked softly, both of them still watching the scene.

“I… haven’t found an opportunity to bring it up, but it has been on my mind.” He also knew that Tony could probably help him find someone with discretion. “I think I need to just be his friend, not advise him on how to get better.”

Sam nodded absently. “He might not be ready to talk to someone, but I think it’d be good for him and you.”

“Me?”

“Steve, he can’t lay all his problems on you, just as I know you don’t lay any of your problems on him. I think both of you could do with a little counseling, given all that you’ve gone through in such a short amount of time.” There was no judgment in Sam’s tone, and he wondered if this was how Bucky saw him when he spoke.

He nodded his head absently, aware that he personally struggled with some things, but he never let them show if he didn’t have to. Sam was probably one of the few people he had hinted at about it. Yet, something in the idea of seeing counseling bolstered him to the idea.

“He might agree to seeing someone if I agree to go as well,” he finally said. “Bucky was always… very proud and stubborn, but he might relent if he sees me doing it.”

“Just remember that you should also be doing it for you, not just for him,” Sam reminded softly, as gentle a prodding as he could expect from a concerned friend.

Just then, Bucky rose from the seat and grasped the handles of the wheelchair that the old man was settled in, pulling it away from the table and wheeling the old veteran from the room. He watched with a fondness of his best friend as the forever young man walked with someone who was wrinkled and plainly showing age. The difference was amusing, though he thought that Bucky seemed slightly subdued.

“Hi Albert,” Sam said in way of greeting to the old man. “Good game of cards?”

“Yeah, ‘cept those young assholes cheat like always,” the old man called Albert said, earning a laugh out of Sam. The old man suddenly shot a hand out with more dexterity than he had anticipated. “Captain Rogers, it’s an honour to meet you. A real honour.”

Steve smiled and took Albert’s hand, giving it a shake. The old man had a firm grip, crisp and even despite age. He was by now used to giving handshakes to a lot of people who met him. “The honour is all mine, sir.”

“Bah, don’t give me that. You might look young like my friend here, but I know you’re older than I am,” Albert said in a scoffing no-nonsense kind of way. “Come on now, James, my granddaughter is just outside in the blue car. Got some legs on her, you can thank my wife for them. You’re still single, right?”

Steve had to hold in a laugh at the sour look that Bucky wore as he wheeled the old man towards the exit. He cast a look at Sam who was also apparently trying to hold in laughter. “Never gets old.”

“No, no it doesn’t,” Sam replied.

Albert suddenly twisted around to peer back at them, and both he and Sam wiped the expressions of amusement from their faces. “I’ll get my other granddaughter to pick me up next week, Captain. She’s got a mean set of legs on her too; you can thank my wife for them.”

Bucky threw him a wolfish look before knocking on the button to have the door open automatically. He watched in slight concern that he had somehow just gotten roped into some odd familial double-date. He glanced at Sam who by now was chewing on a knuckle to keep from howling with laughter.

“Is he always like that?”

“I’ve never seen him offer his grandkids, if that’s what you mean,” Sam replied with amusement heavy in the man’s voice. “Otherwise, yeah that’s pretty much Albert.”

Steve couldn’t help but shake his head, amused and slightly baffled but watched fondly through the window in the door as Bucky helped to sort out old Albert and indeed met the granddaughter. It wasn’t very long and his friend was walking back inside the VA and prowling over to where he stood with Sam. It was getting later in the evening anyway, and by now, the place was supposed to be closed. Sam didn’t seem to mind staying a bit later though.

“How was the granddaughter with the nice legs?” It was Sam, unable to help poking the bear.

“I liked her hands better,” the Winter Soldier replied coldly. It was kind of tone that should have frozen them all in their tracks. Instead, Sam just chuckled.

“Let me guess, they were long fingered with well shaped nails?” Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky’s sudden startled look. He gave his friend a kindly look. “You… always liked a dame’s hands if they had long fingers. You said…”

“We should go, Steve,” Bucky cut in and turned away from them.

The cold attitude towards the past was not unexpected, but he reached out and slipped an arm across his friend’s chest, dragging the other man back to press into his own chest. As usual, Bucky didn’t put up much of a fight about it, apparently craving some physical contact and assurances lately or at least since he had spoken with Rumlow. They hadn’t sorted through that yet, and he caught Sam’s slightly meaningful look.

He still held his friend’s back against his chest as he smiled sadly at Sam. “Do you need help closing down the place for the night?”

“Nah man, I’ve got a bit of paper work to do for tomorrow, so I’m going to be here for a little bit longer,” Sam replied with the usual enthusiasm despite the awkward coldness radiating from the Winter Soldier. “You two head out. Oh and maybe you should call me when you make it home so I know you two are back safe.”

That earned a grudging twitch of response from Bucky still tucked under his arm, and Steve just mock glared Sam. “Ha ha, but I don’t think we’re passed curfew yet.”

“Come on, it’s passed your bedtime, old man,” Bucky suddenly said and pulled out of his grip. “Good night, Sam.”

“See you later then, Sam.”

“Night, James. Night Steve.”

Steve waved at his dark-skinned friend as he left and quickly caught up with Bucky who was busy pulling out a rumpled baseball cap from the jacket pocket and stuffing it on that dark head. He noted that his friend pulled the cap tight down to obscure more facial features, but he reached out and stopped Bucky from skulking off and gently tucked some hair behind his friend’s ears and centering the cap more.

“You’ve been wearing that thing more and more in the last week and a half,” he said fondly as they turned and began to walk away from the Veteran Affairs building.

“It hides my face from store-front and traffic cameras,” Bucky replied a shrug. It was clear that old habits of remaining unseen and anonymous were still heavily engrained in his friend. Of course, given who was probably looking for his friend, the precautions were probably warranted.

Once it seemed that they were set, Steve began to walk back to his apartment, watching people as they headed home from work, shopping and visiting other people. He felt the Winter Soldier just slightly behind him, walking at his elbow and apparently very interested in his shoes as they moved with the usual arrangement when in public together. He tried not to glance back too often.

“Dinner should be almost ready when we get back,” he said conversationally. Food, like the weather, was always a safe topic to start with in order to lead into other matters. It sometimes loosened up the tension in his friend too. “I was going to invite Sam, but I don’t think he’d take too well to us sparring with forks. I bought a new set by the way.”

“I hope it was made from titanium,” the Soldier said from his elbow.

“No, but I was assured it was hardy,” Steve replied with a smiled and shifted to nudge at Bucky with an elbow. “I told them I had kids who like to rough house at the dinner table.”

His friend huffed noisily, a sound that was a cross between a chuckle and a growl. “We’re two of the oldest and strongest kids I’ve ever known.”

Steve moved to avoid a group of young girls chattering outside of a shoe store, his eyes unconsciously moving back to see how Bucky handled the situation. Aside from a tensing at the shoulder when one girl laughed shrilly, there was nothing, assuring him that the Soldier was in control as always. He hadn’t seen a slip, and he was beginning to realize that he might have been a bit paranoid about it all the same. Bucky seemed to be handling the transition better than expected save for the continued and occasional angry looks whenever Rumlow was mentioned.

“With your hair so long, you look like a greasy teenager,” Steve teased. He smiled at the glare that was leveled at him expertly from just under the rim of Bucky’s cap. “I should attack you with scissors in the night and make you look like a real man again.”

“Touch my hair, and I’m giving you a full body waxy.” The hissing retort came with a hard jab of fingers into his side, forcing him over a step.

“So protective of your long flowing locks,” he replied because the conversation had turned to that easy banter that he enjoyed so much. “Are you really going to keep growing them out?”

“I’m not cutting it,” Bucky replied with great dignity. It made him laugh before he suddenly slung an arm around his friend’s shoulders and pulled Bucky up to walk with him rather than behind him. It was so odd doing so, given how many years it had been Bucky’s arm around his shoulders instead, but he was paying the favour back now. “I… I like it.”

Steve almost pulled up short in surprise. His friend very rarely mentioned liking anything, and it was clear from the sudden awkwardness that Bucky found the notion strange too. “Well then, I guess you’re keeping it. Given all the numbers you are getting, other people clearly think you’re very handsome with it.”

Ah, there was the usual scowl whenever he mentioned and teased Bucky about dating. It was so different from the old James who had lavished the attention of men and women alike, always able to make friends with men and get dates with women so easily. It was simply all too glaring how much damage HYDRA had done to his friend now that Bucky seemed unable or unwilling to consider picking up friends and a dame for a quick night out on the town. It was stuff like this that made him want to never grant amnesty to anyone in HYDRA. Why should they walk free and have a life when their organization had stolen this man’s life and left him a shadow of his former self?

Yet, Steve was jarred from his thoughts when Bucky suddenly came to a stop and stiffened under his arm. Immediately, it tightened as if to prevent the Soldier from shooting off somewhere, but it wasn’t necessary as his friend had simply stopped to stare down a darkened alleyway. There was nothing down there save an old graffiti-covered dumpster.

“What is it?” He couldn’t see anything down there after all, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t have missed something.

The Winter Soldier was on high alert but didn’t move from under his arm either. “It’s nothing,” came the reply a moment later. Was that… fear? “I probably just saw a rat or something.”

“Bucky…”

“You know alleys, Steve. They are always filled with vermin,” his friend said with a shrug and began to move off again. There was something in the dismissive coldness that reminded him very much of the Winter Soldier.

Steve pulled Bucky harder against his side as they walked, keeping the gesture friendly to avoid making anyone thing that he was confining his friend. “Did something happen?”

There was a tense moment where he thought that Bucky was going to break and slink away from him, and he would have let his friend go. He always believed, and Sam agreed, that Bucky would come to him when his friend was ready to. If he pushed, he’d only do harm. He wanted to be as open and accepting as possible, but he also recognized that there were some parts of Bucky’s life that would probably always remain hidden from him. Bucky had lived a brutal life and was only now remembering parts of it.

However, the Soldier didn’t answer his question and kept them walking. He let the subject drop, but he intended to ask around if anything had happened in that alley in the last while. It wasn’t that he was spying on Bucky, but he wanted to be certain that his friend was safe. 

He thought of convincing Bucky to go to Anacostia Park with him, given that was one of their favourite parks. He suspected that his friend wanted to go in order to look out over the Potomac, perhaps remembering how it was on the banks of that river that the Winter Soldier had been freed from HYDRA. He liked to go because it was a nice park and had nice trails in forested areas, the kinds of places he could encourage Bucky to just let loose. Of course, the last time there, they had accidentally smashed a tree pretty badly.

Dinner would be overcooked if they left it that long, so he walked along with his more somber friend, occasionally ribbing Bucky until the Winter Soldier slammed him into a parked car in revenge. Thankfully, his body hadn’t created any damage save to set off the car alarm, and that shut off after half a minute. He then ushered a smirking Bucky back to his apartment to avoid more property damage, though he didn’t think it any manner of surrender.

He proved that when he threw his friend into the closet by the front door and snapped it shut, holding it closed until he knew that Bucky would take the door apart to get out. He then flipped the door open just in time to catch his friend’s metal fist and jerk the Soldier out, smiling the entire way.

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

Steve then went off to the kitchen to check on the stew that he had slow cooking, stirring it even as he heard the water running in the bathroom. He set on some rice to cook and in the time that it had, the Winter Soldier had lurked in to grab dishes and new utensils to set the table. It was the new usual arrangement and it worked out well. He knew that Bucky needed something to do, which was one of the reasons he had a few things to bring up at dinner.

“What do you want to drink, Steve?” Bucky was peering into the open fridge like the mysteries of the universe were in there. Was his friend always that worn looking?

“I think I bought some grapefruit juice, so I’ll have that,” he replied and glanced over at his friend’s snort. “What?”

“Grapefruit juice is for old people.”

“And those with urinary issues,” Steve pointed out, raising his eyebrows when Bucky looked at him. “I got it for you, really. I can never tell how you’re handling your age, so this is precautionary.”

“Punk,” Bucky growled and slinked away from the fridge with the carton of new juice.

He chuckled and stirred the rice so it wouldn’t stick to the bottom of the pot, and satisfied that it was done, he reached out to spoon some onto a corning-ware dish to be put on the table. He stopped short, hand in mid-motion, as he spied Bucky drinking juice right from the carton like some kid. “Hey, put it in a glass like the rest of the world.”

“I was testing to make sure it wasn’t poisoned,” the Soldier replied albeit guiltily at getting caught. “It’s not by the way, but thanks for caring about my health.”

Steve could only roll his eyes and spoon out rice into the dish as two glasses of juice were filled up and taken out to the dining room. He dished out the beef stew into another dish and took both out to set on the table before he quickly switched the glasses of juice to limit any unseen sabotage to his drink. He sat down in his usual spot as Bucky prowled in from putting away the carton of juice in the fridge again.

They dished out the food and dug in without comment to one another, none necessary. They generally ate quietly, not disturbing the other and the silence was always companionable. He finished first as he always did, given that Bucky sometimes seemed to have trouble coping with a wide range of tastes. He generally enjoyed watching his friend fondly anyway.

Once Bucky began to dish out seconds, Steve rested his elbows on the table. “Have you thought anymore about what I said yesterday about finding a hobby to occupy yourself?”

The Winter Soldier paused in spooning out more stew and then shrugged. “Not really.”

“I could get you a sketchbook of your own,” Steve said softly. He had seen Bucky lurking near his, always on a blank page but never drawing anything. “Sometimes just scratching down some lines is all that you need to get a start on something.”

“Sketching is your thing,” Bucky replied and began to eat again. Now that his friend was fed regularly, the man had a very healthy appetite.

“It’s my hobby, not my thing. We can both sketch,” Steve replied softly, wanting only to encourage and not force. “There are other things too. Painting, wood-working, puzzles, knitting, glass work, cooking, pottery, and really so many others.” He knew there were outdoor activities and different exercise and meditation techniques, but he wanted something that Bucky could feel content doing in the apartment.

He watched as his friend considered it thoughtfully between bites of food, and that was his cue to dish out a second helping for himself. He had to remember to make this dish again when it was in the winter months because it hit all the right places and it was only autumn. He enjoyed it all the same, suspecting that Bucky was much the same.

“I don’t know,” his friend finally replied slowly. “Maybe… I’ll try sketching first soon.”

“You can use my book, and if you feel like it’s something you want to pursue, we can easily get you your own,” he replied with a bright encouraging smile. He could tell that Bucky wasn’t entirely convinced but would try for his sake.

The Winter Soldier simply nodded and cleaned off the rest of the plate in silence. Too much, too soon it seemed, but he hoped that having something quiet and constructive would ease some of the anger and strain his friend was under. However, the anger and the rising tide of strain brought up another sensitive topic.

“Sam mentioned that it might be good if you talked to a professional,” Steve said carefully.

“No.” The single word was cold.

He had expected that, but he pressed on doggedly. “Buck, I know you’re getting memories back and you’re doing fabulously in coping, but it might be healthy for you to be able to talk to someone who can ask the right questions.”

“No, Steve.” The temperature of the room was rapidly dropping.

He pressed on still. “I’m thinking of seeking one myself, just to air out everything that’s happened since the war,” he said, watching carefully as Bucky stilled across from him. “How coping with losing so much while gaining others, being out of time, being affected by the serum…”

Slowly, he lapsed into silence, meeting his friend’s gaze and seeing just a bit of the strain in those blue eyes. Something else lurked there too, and it had nothing to do with the apparent emotions that were running with whatever wild thoughts that were streaming through Bucky’s head. He slowly reached out and set his hand on Bucky’s metal one, stroking the smooth cold plates with his thumb.

“Bucky, you need help, and it’s the kind of help that’s beyond me,” Steve said softly. “Please let me help you cope.”

“I…”

They both tensed when his cell phone suddenly went off, breaking up the moment and forcing him to withdraw his hand to get up in order to go in search of his phone. He didn’t readily carry it on him unless he was on work time, and even then, he sometimes forgot he even put it on silence.

He found it with his keys and quickly picked up the phone seeing that it was from SHIELD. He began to wander back to the dining room before stopping at the words coming through the other side of the line. The information was good; the First National Bank had revealed itself as a major HYDRA nest and some of the equipment was even still there.

“Get as many people as we can spare to that bank to secure it,” he said, his eyes finding Bucky’s where his friend still sat at the table. “Involve other government agencies if you have to, and do as we agreed as well. Release Jack Rollins.”

He saw his friend perk at the name, no doubt prepared to use that man to find Rumlow if possible. However, he had no idea if the man would go for Rollins openly or if it would be another situation where different contacts would be used before the end point. This was great news though, and he supposed that he should probably consider thanking that Jake kid for listening to Rumlow talking about it. They could perhaps finally drive HYDRA from Washington or get a handle on how to do that.

He stayed on the line long enough to give instructions, keeping his enthusiasm to himself as he smiled at Bucky. They were probably going to need lawyers and a search warrant, but given how the world knew so much about HYDRA, he had no doubt that both could be secured easily. It might have been too easy, but they had no idea what was down there yet, no idea just how good of a find it was. Steve almost volunteered to go in, but he knew better than that. Tomorrow would be busy instead.

He hung up the phone and slipped it into his back pocket as he walked back to the dining room table and set his hands on the back of his vacated chair. “The First National Bank, Bucky, it’s a major HYDRA base. Apparently it’s hidden under the safety deposit box room floor.”

The Winter Soldier stiffened and then rose from the chair quickly as if burned. “The… First National Bank…?”

“Yes, it’s in an older part of town…” he trailed off at the haunted look that Bucky gave him. “What? What is it? You know that base.”

His friend swallowed and looked like dinner might make a second appearance at any moment. Steve had never seen his friend in such a state of disarray since Rumlow had dismissively brushed off the Soldier a few weeks ago. “Bucky… talk to me.”

“That’s… the place where I was most often kept sleeping,” the Winter Soldier said tonelessly. “That’s… the place where they programmed and ordered me the most.”

Steve paled and he came around the other side of the table to stand in front of his friend. His hands reached up to clamp on Bucky’s cheeks, forcing his friend’s face up to be level with his own. “We’ll get them for what they did to you,” he said firmly. “I promise.”

Bucky’s blue eyes closed and his friend stepped up to rest against his chest. His arms easily found their way around the Soldier’s shoulders in a friendly supportive hug. “…Rumlow went there a lot.”

“Are you going to take up a vigil there?”

“I might,” Bucky replied softly. “I can pick him off through a sniper rifle.”

Steve sighed and reached up with one hand to stroke the back of Bucky’s head, not about to forbid that action. By now, he knew there was no point because his friend was going to continually look for as long as Rumlow evaded the Soldier. “Well… we’ll be releasing his second-in-command near there. You might get lucky.”

“It’s never about luck with Rumlow. It’s about trying to get one step ahead of him,” Bucky replied and sighed heavily, seemingly settling down again. “I just… want to be empty again.”

“No, you don’t want that,” Steve replied softly, still stroking the long dark hair. “You just want control over your life, nothing more.”

“Control… and order,” the Soldier said softly.

He wasn’t certain that Bucky actually believed him, but he didn’t push any further on the matter. Instead, he withdrew smiling and tugged his friend along to the couch, leaving behind the last of their meal for clean up later. He pressed Bucky down into the chair that he normally took up and instead settled on the couch. He picked up his sketchbook and his friend settled to allow them this companionable quiet activity to chase away whatever memories or emotions that were currently running circles in the Winter Soldier’s head.

It was a quick sketch but his friend appreciated the gesture and the quiet activity all the same. It was Bucky who suggested they get some rest, and he agreed without caring that it was earlier than they normally went to bed. As was the relatively new tradition, they somehow crammed onto the same bed, Bucky having previously refused his suggestion to get something larger. He suspected that his friend found security in the fact that their backs almost always pressed against each other.

Tonight, it was different when he felt the slide and press of the Winter Soldier’s bare chest against his back and that metal arm creep around his middle to cling tightly to him. He didn’t move, but he felt the ache of sympathy and longing to make things better as Bucky’s face tucked in between his shoulders. No doubt his friend would be tortured with new memories, new strain, new anger, and all he could hope to be was the balm to soothe his friend, offer a shoulder to lean on and now perhaps more than ever, urge Bucky to seek some professional help.

Once this bank matter was over, he thought that things would finally return to some semblance of normal. He had no idea how wrong he would be.

***

Brock looked up from the table that he had been leaning over when the door opened and Jack Rollins strolled in. He pushed himself up from his vigil looking through notes and maps like any good STRIKE commander would for an upcoming mission. He knew that he would be returning to it soon enough, but it was good to see a moderately friendly and trustworthy face when compared to the rest of the team that he had been given leave to assemble.

“How did it feel to have a shower where you didn’t have to mind yourself if you drop the soap?” He smirked and extended a hand.

Rollins took it without question but instead of shaking turned their united hands from side-to-side to examine the scarring on his skin. “You make it sound like it wasn’t everyone else having to mind themselves in the shower.” The man’s deep voice was exactly as he remembered. “Prison wasn’t exactly a vacation though.”

“You gonna tell me an exciting story, Rollins?”

He gestured to one of the two chairs in the room, both of them highly uncomfortable so that anyone sitting in them would make their business as quick as possible and get out again. It also meant that when he spent long hours here, there was no chance of him falling asleep.

“Not as interesting as whatever story you’re writing, Rumlow. Word is that you’re going to tangle with the Winter Soldier.” He suspected that Jake had babbled like a baboon at Rollins. He was going to enjoy getting rid of that poo-flicker.

“You first, Jackie.”

Rollins shrugged. “Most of the prisons have separated anyone who is suspected of being above bottom feeder of HYDRA, sending most to other prisons and refusing to allow us to contact each other. The other prisoners get special privileges for reporting any suspicious activity from known HYDRA agents. I almost got shivved on day one.”

Rumlow chuckled at the sheer idea of someone trying to shiv Rollins in prison. The guy was very good a hand-to-hand combat. “How did that work out for them?”

“They added six months to any sentence I was going to earn for bashing his head in,” Rollins replied and smirked at him. “Nice work getting amnesty for me when I didn’t ask for it.”

“Ah well, Jackie, it seemed silly to let your pretty face languish in prison. Besides, we all know that anyone worth their salt in HYDRA isn’t going to ask for amnesty,” Brock said as he folded his hands behind his head. “How long until a break out?”

“No idea,” Rollins said with a shrug. “What’s your story? You look like the human torch gone wrong.”

“I always said I was too hot to handle,” Rumlow said with a leering smirk that earned another roll of the eyes from Rollins. “I happened to be on one of the floors that the Charlie helicarrier passed through before it went down in the Potomac. I was told I survived because a major part of the roof dropped and held up most of the rest that tried to fall on me.”

There was no particular sympathy from Jack, only curious glances at his scarred arms and the exposed parts of his neck. He expected no sympathy and wanted none too. “And the story of you going after the Winter Soldier?”

“It’s true,” he said simply.

“Well, I guess I’ll prepare your eulogy now, huh?”

“Not so fast,” Brock replied and gestured at the table where files, papers and maps were laid out in a sort of ordered chaos. “The Soldier is in prime condition for taming.”

Rollins made an effort to not glance at the table, though he could see the man’s curiosity was rising with his confidence on the matter. He could always trust the man to back him up even on the most hair-brain of missions. It was how he had convinced Rollins to join STRIKE with him in the first place, and this was far less long-term aspect of Rollins’ time. The rewards would be just as good too.

He rose from his chair to walk over to the table, spreading his hands as if caressing the paper. He reached out and grabbed a file, offering it to his second. It was a homicide file, the details written within were from the initial report that detailed a robbery gone bad in an alley.

The other man let out a soft whistle of appreciation at the autopsy report and photos of the one body of interest. “Stabbed sixty-eight times _after_ a caved in sternum?”

“Apparently there was an anger management issue,” Rumlow replied with a smirk. “He’s losing control, Jack. It’s faster than I would have liked, but I think the instability can be corrected with a handler’s order only this time.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Jack said and finally stood, dropping the file on the table in front of him. “You aren’t going to wipe the Soldier?”

“No,” Brock said, watching Rollins’ reaction to the news.

They stared at each other for a very long time, and despite being impassive, he knew that Jack was a smart man and was adding up the odds despite having so little information. They had also worked alongside one another and built enough trust that he wouldn’t have shot his mouth off lightly, that there was a reason to the madness of keeping the Soldier malfunctioning.

“You sure?” Rollins looked him dead in the eye, and he stared right back.

“He’s going to come willingly, so with training, he’s not going to need the wipes,” Rumlow replied simply. He had been thinking about it for awhile, but all this new information, the slow burn and violence meant something to him that it wouldn’t mean to anyone else. “He’s killing people; he has no other outlet but that and he’s spirally into chaos when he was always order amid it.”

“You’re going to become his order,” Rollins said into the brief silence. “I don’t envy your position, but if any stubborn cunning asshole can do it, it’s you. He always responded to you best.” There was a pause as Rollins surveyed the papers. “If he does kill you, at least write in your will that I get that offshore savings account I know you have.”

Brock snorted and rolled his eyes, sliding another file over to Jack, who flipped through it, though this time his second-in-command glanced up at him frequently. “Have I made my point yet?”

The file in question was one from last night where there were six brutal knifings in gang territory. The area was known for being volatile, the beat cops down there overworked and dealing with kids killing other kids, gangs selling drugs and rampaging turf wars. To anyone else, it was just a show down of gangs in some dark corner of the world. However, the work, the skill of the murderer was too obvious to anyone who had seen the Winter Soldier in action in close combat. Those were the asset’s kills made to look like a gang incident.

“That was last night,” Rumlow interjected. “However, he’s found a prime killing ground, hasn’t he? There is so much violence there, so few witnesses and so much stinking fear that he can relieve the itch when it gets too bad.”

“Fine, you made your point if he’s looking for opportunity to kill people,” Rollins grudgingly said. “What about Rogers?”

“For one, I suspect he doesn’t know about these incidences. I think the Soldier is hiding them, probably aware Cap would disapprove; that might be the reason he’s unhinging so quickly now that he’s begun.” Brock rubbed the back of his neck with a hand and gestured around the table. “However, I left something for Rogers to keep him out of my hair until the retrieval.”

“You successfully baited Rogers?” Rollins sounded impressed but also grudgingly interested.

“He’s taken my bait hook, line and sinker,” Brock said, smoothing his hands over the maps. “His men took the First National…”

“Shit Rumlow, that was…”

“Shut up, Jack. It was useless to us, but I made certain that enough shit was planted in there to keep them all busy for awhile. We could never use that place again, and I need Rogers occupied,” Brock said with a hint of impatience. He needed Jack to understand that they were on a serious timeframe, that if Rogers got a whiff of any of this too soon, it was game over. “The First National was a prime target to give up, so I gave it up when it suited me best.”

He gestured his second over and laid out his plan in full to the man, referencing what he knew of the Soldier’s movements but mostly of where Steve could be found. He explain how the operation was going to work, the timing, the men that they would be taking with them and how it was going to go down without interference from outside sources.

Rollins listened attentively and offered suggestions to smooth out operations, and it was clear from that point on that Jack was going to follow him into this. So they planned out the operation in full, writing down points that needed clarification or something specific to make it fly.

Soon enough, they sat back and Brock felt every confidence on this matter. “So you’ll contact your guy with the cops and arrange that?”

“Yeah, assuming he’s still talking to me,” Rollins said with a shrug. “I technically still have his balls in a vice with that rookie shit he pulled.”

Rumlow nodded, satisfied with the answer. He knew Rollins would pull through being ex-police and all. “I’ve got a guy watching the Veteran Affairs building where Falcon works,” he said off-handedly. “I want to know when the Soldier comes and goes from there.”

“What makes you think he’s play visitations to the vets?”

Brock fished through the papers and pulled out a bloody crumpled bit of paper with a phone number and a name on it. “That was recovered from the bloody jacket found at the first crime scene. I had them run the number and get a profile on the woman. She works down at the VA and one of my old black-ops buddies went in and talked to her. The Winter Soldier has made three stops in there.”

Rollins turned the paper over and the look of disgust on the man’s face was amusing. “He wasn’t normally so sloppy. Details like this missed? That’s not the Soldier at all.”

“I know. I don’t think that first kill was planned,” Brock replied and folded his hands behind his head. “He’s in a bad way. I think I set him off by showing him only indifference when we met up.”

“When have you ever shown him indifference,” Rollins asked with a suspicious look.

“Exactly, Jackie,” Rumlow replied with a smirk. “It’s got to be driving him up the wall. I brushed him off a second time in talking only to Rogers. The asset is making bigger and bigger messes.”

“You always clean up the worst of the Soldier’s messes,” Rollins agreed. The man knew there was always a reason behind his action.

They lapsed into another silence, this one companionable and thoughtful. They each had their own mission to complete before the final show down, and he had a lot of preparation work to get the Soldier when he needed the asset. He also needed to guarantee that Rogers stayed away, though Karamartov was convinced Steve would be a problem. He knew Rogers would be a problem, which was why they needed to disappear with the Winter Soldier as quickly as possible.

After he gloated though… he was a man of pride, and he wanted Steve to know he had won. _‘Brock Rumlow beats Captain America.’_ That would be the title he’d want on the morning paper if it ever appeared there.

It was such a pleasure knowing that when the trap clicked shut, he’d be working permanently with the Winter Soldier. It was a long time coming. It wasn’t just for him though; the asset needed the stability and order that he offered. That was the key in the lock for turning: order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for taking the time to read and I hope it was enjoyable. Thanks in advance for any comments and kudos.


	8. A Mastery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter. I'm actually sad to see it end, and I hope this chapter lives up to the others that came before it and tie stuff together. As always, my work has not been beta-read so I apologize in advance for any mistakes that are found therein.

***

There was a pleasure spending more time with the Winter Soldier, having control and taking a more direct hand in how the asset was tended, programmed, and even interacted with others. Pierce was with him in the beginning, generally directing him before they arrived for any phase of training but standing back to allow him to interact with the Soldier.

At first, he knew that the asset would continually look to Pierce for overall direction, verification to follow his orders when the older man was present. They had both expected that, but the more time he was with the Winter Soldier, the more times the asset finally agreed to follow him while Pierce was present and only slightly grudgingly follow his command without having to look for the go ahead from the ex-Secretary, who was just as hard on him as on the Soldier to force them together in a very different way than their previous working relationship.

Brock arrived down into the basement of a building that was under reconstruction, and he smirked fondly at the asset who had been sent to lurk in a corner. The Soldier immediately came to him, and his hand found the back of the asset’s neck, stroking and massaging in their usual greeting. “Big day today,” he said in a confident voice, ignoring the few men whose job had been to sneak the asset here.

“Brock,” was the Soldier’s only reply, which apparently was a usual greeting for him now. Pierce hadn’t looked too happy about it but hadn’t stood in the way of it.

“Are you ready to see if anyone is worthy of handling you?” He knew the asset really couldn’t care, not at this stage. “I’m not so sure about a drug test though.” However, the system worked, and he was a product of that system which limited his complaints.

He looked over when Pierce arrived with the usual two technicians, and they greeted each other with a nod. With Insight set in the estimated next five years, the ex-Secretary was being pulled away more and more, though he noted that Pierce still dedicated time to him and mostly to the asset. He supposed that control of the most expensive and worthwhile possession of HYDRA was hard to give up after so many years in control of it.

“Agent Rumlow,” Alexander greeted after giving the asset a quick pat on the side of the head. He had noted that was Pierce’s greeting, different but similar to his own. He suspected every long term handler had one. “You read the files I gave you?”

“Yes sir,” he replied with a crisp nod. “Only six today?”

“Candidates are running thin, less people to spare with all that’s going on,” Pierce said with the usual politically-mastered smile. “However, these six seem to be the best choices. You agree?”

Brock shrugged his shoulders, not certain if he did agree with them. There was something in the files that he read that made him think that the asset wouldn’t like them very much. There were a lot of heavy-handed people and one that he thought probably would like the asset for reasons other than being a handler. Still, he wasn’t certain it was his place to cross Pierce’s decisions.

“Brock, speak,” Pierce said with a hard edge to the man’s voice. Clearly he had been a little too obvious with his thoughts.

“I… don’t think most of the candidates will work out,” he finally said carefully. “I can’t explain it, but I didn’t like them. They don’t even compare with the handlers I read about that are currently in active duty.”

“So your gut tells you that these people aren’t worthy?”

Brock had to shrug again because he didn’t often have to base his perception on a file alone and then let the asset loose on them based on the information. “I don’t think the Winter Soldier will tolerate them much.”

Alexander Pierce watched him for a very long time, surveying him as if trying to decide if he could even follow through with this exercise today. The asset remained a fixed entity at his elbow, but when he glanced over, there was a soft hunger in those blue eyes, the predator pacing. He almost saw the same thing in Pierce, but it was far more calculating than the Soldier.

“We’ll proceed,” Pierce finally said.

He nodded and led the way into the attached room where a group of six people were standing in loose attention. He took center stage of the room, a place he was by now used to being a STRIKE commander, but he knew that most eyes were on the asset who lurked by his elbow. He ignored that Pierce and the technicians stayed well away so as not to interfere or draw the asset’s attention.

“Alright, you six get a special privilege, so let’s hope that there’s something worthwhile here,” he said and smirked in his usual cocksure way. “Spread out in a line so that only your fingertips can touch if your arms are raised to shoulder level,” he ordered. He ignored the one dirty look he was thrown for the order, waiting simply for the order to be followed.

However, the one big man who had given him a rude look appeared to be too good to actually do as he was told. He pointed at the bald idiot in question. “Step forward, asshole and tell me what the problem is.”

“You made us stand around for almost an hour,” the man said aggressively. “And shouldn’t we have a damn demonstration to see if this weapon is even worth our time? He was just sitting in a damn chair the first time.”

Brock frowned in mock concentration and glanced at the asset at his elbow. “He wants a demonstration,” he murmured loud enough to be heard. “What do you think about a demonstration, hmm?” The asset didn’t answer, but he smirked when the Soldier focused on the man out of line. The predator was keen and poised to attack at a single flick of his fingers.

He pointed and gestured to one of the technicians instead. “He wants a demonstration, so come here.” If the technician or Pierce were alarmed by this, neither of them showed it. If anything, Pierce seemed more interested than ever and the asset glanced dismissively at the technician who came to stand at the spot he indicated with a hand. The other five people shifted in the line but stayed where they were.

 _“Make it messy,”_ he ordered the Winter Soldier in Russian, flicking his fingers forward, and his eyes set the target with a glance.

The asset exploded from his side, covering the distance with such ease that at least two of the line stepped backwards in shock. The bald man had enough time to cover over a look of surprise with a mean one, but the asset’s metal fist impacted with the man’s jaw, reducing it to pulp. There was a pathetic scream of pain as the man collapsed, but the Winter Soldier had an order and was following it with a determined brutality.

His charge settled down on the fallen man’s chest, knees coming down into the crook of those weakly flailing elbows to hold them in place. The asset just kept on punching the bald man’s face, everyone else having to hear the sickening break of bone, the crack of metal on flesh and some even have the pleasure of flicking blood as the asset’s arm ratcheted back for another swing. The predator was in full motion, reducing the victim to a limp mess and the area where a head should have been was a pile of bone, blood and brains. Nothing was particularly identifiable by the time the Soldier accepted that the order was carried out.

Brock made certain that he wore only a bored expression, even taking to examining his watch at one point to ignore the looks of mixed horror and fascination. There was at least one greedy sadistic look, and their line of potential applicants was down to five.

The Winter Soldier rose fluidly and returned to him, and he reached up and wiped a spatter of blood from the weapon’s forehead as a mother wipes dirt from a child just before church. _“Good, now settle down,”_ he ordered and the asset blinked at him in assent and shuffled muscled shoulders. He didn’t need the weapon on a blood high from that little demonstration.

“Does anyone else need further demonstration?” Everyone shook their heads. He made certain to look between each of them, raising an eyebrow as the stink of death rose around them all. “Good, we’ll proceed then with the real reason we’re here. Spread out like I ordered.”

He watched as the five remaining moved, all evened up on the line and with more than the necessary space between them because no one wanted to go too close to the body still lying on the floor. He folded his arms across his chest and regarded the five candidates. “This is a test to see if the Winter Soldier accepts you. Stand in the line exactly as you are, and you don’t have to do anything more than that. Don’t step out of line and don’t touch the asset.” He actually wasn’t certain about the no-touching rule, but Pierce had told him it was necessary. “You’ll all get a minute or two with the asset for a staring contest.”

He glanced at Pierce who had remained at the far end of the room, and the Secretary nodded to him to proceed. He drew in a breath and looked at the asset, his gaze meeting the Soldier’s who was still lurking with the predator so close to the surface. It felt odd how he didn’t want to share the asset with these men, how unworthy they seemed in his eyes when he looked them all over. It wasn’t for possessive reasons, just that he wasn’t about to give up the weapon to someone unable to handle the duty well.

Brock made certain that it didn’t show when he regarded the asset, but it was difficult. He leaned forward and the Soldier leaned down slightly to listen. He spoke in Russian softly, giving instructions for the line and the asset peered at the five people. _“Test them.”_

The Winter Soldier didn’t move from his side, and he saw those blue eyes peering at him having clearly heard the command but almost unwilling or unable to follow it. He made a gesture with his hand and the asset grudgingly stepped forward, and by that point, he knew how this was going to end. His hand reached up and grasped the back of the Soldier’s neck, massaging before giving a harsh pinch. _“Test them and if they are unworthy, take them out. We have no time for weakness. You don’t have time for weakness; you need only the best handlers.”_

Brock released the Soldier with a rough cuff to the shoulder and this time, the asset left his side. Pierce was raising an eyebrow at him from the far end but he turned his gaze away from the man to watch the proceeding like they didn’t matter to him. He actually wished he was closer, so he could see each exchange.

It really wasn’t necessary. The Winter Soldier stood in front of the first in the line and then suddenly reached out to choke the life out of man with an unwavering intensity, not even paying attention to kicking feet or slapping hands. Once life had been removed, the asset lost interest in the body and dropped it to the floor and then took three steps to the next man in line. The second fared little better as the Soldier took a single glance over and then punched the man’s chest so hard it collapsed and the struggles went ignored.

The third, clearly seeing where this was going, broke the line to run for the door. The weapon moved immediately to follow, and it was almost laughable to see the prey behaviour, the shrieking in fear before the asset was on top of the larger set man. The pair hit the floor in a tangle of limbs, but that was only for as long as it took the Winter Soldier to break arms and legs that flailed before grabbing the screaming man’s head and smashing it repeatedly into the floor. The struggles subsided quickly, the screaming cut off abruptly and the Soldier rose as bloodied as ever.

He didn’t give another order and the asset proceeded with a stalking gait back to the line, stepping over fallen bodies to come to stand in front of the fourth man who had already pissed himself. Perhaps frozen in fear, unable to break like a frightened rabbit, but the Winter Soldier stepped in and with almost gentle care, snapped the man’s neck and let the body hit the floor. Unworthy indeed…

Brock had locked his arms over his chest to prevent himself from moving or displaying how much he was displeased with this showing. The fifth man stood taller than the asset, lean and with a hint of greedy sadism. Was that what he had looked like when he had stood last in the line and watched so many men die? No, he had not carried that sort of fevered desire, and he knew that he had never attempted or thought to attempt to touch the asset while in the line, especially not after the current showing.

Yet, the man reached out, clearly enthralled and wanton. He almost barked for the asset to kill the man, but it wasn’t necessary. The order had been clear that no one was to touch the Soldier. The man’s right hand came around to touch on the metal arm, but the asset’s right hand closed on the man’s wrist immediately. There was no sign of fear until the Winter Soldier’s metal arm rose abruptly up to drive into the man’s arm pit, smashing the pathetic clavicle and driving through heavy musculature to remove the arm entirely after the sickening sound of dislocation.

The fifth and final candidate died from being kicked savagely into the back wall, the imprint bloody and the asset abandoned the removed right arm with a careless flick of the wrist. The technicians didn’t even move from their spot to check the corpses, and he knew that everyone save the asset was looking to him. He was in control of the situation; this was his moment to shine.

“Come here,” he ordered the weapon when the asset seemed confused that there was no one left. Yet, his charge returned to him on the quickest straightest route, striding over bodies and blood to reach him and stand in front of him. The asset was spattered with blood and stunk of death.

He reached up and grasped the asset’s cheeks, forcing the Soldier’s head to bow so their foreheads pressed together. “You have no need for weakness,” he murmured, his fingers subtly digging into the asset’s temples with his usual brisk affection. “Next time I’ll find you someone worthy, okay?” The asset didn’t reply nor nod nor acknowledge him.

“Always follow your gut, Agent Rumlow,” Alexander said as the man approached them as if the proceedings had gone all according to plan. “Your impression, your forged bond with the asset is something to rely on. You know him best; you know what he expects in people.”

Brock nodded his understanding, and he found himself staring up at the predator who was in the forefront of the asset, waiting and hungry, never satisfied. He smirked in reply to it watching him. “Easy now, you’re not allowed to get your blood so warm. It’s bad for your health.” The asset wasn’t to _enjoy_ killing; it was just something that had to happen to make the world a better place. They had enjoyed it once and been moved by the situation together, but he recognized the danger to one as controlled as the Winter Soldier. Killing was business, not a pleasure.

He pulled away a moment later and looked at Pierce who was standing nearby while the technicians in finally went to pick through the bodies. “He’s done that before, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Pierce said with a vague smile. “The candidates before your lot actually, but that situation had been a little more chaotic. More than one person broke the line in that, and it was a warzone by the end.”

Rumlow could imagine it. The asset must have had a field day chasing and butchering frightened men and women. “How long after that until you arranged for our group?”

“Seven months,” Alexander replied and watched him with a benign look. He had been hired on to SHIELD seven months before he had met the asset. “I knew what I was looking at.”

He glanced at the Winter Soldier who was still watching him with a predatory intensity. “The others of my group?”

“Spares I had in the background, who I thought might be good enough,” Pierce said with a wave of an aging hand. “I had high hopes for you given your background, your skills, and your personality. You fit what I was looking for, and that meant that you fit what he needed. You had only a single flaw that I thought might destroy you.”

Brock couldn’t help but stiffen; he had never been told that he had a flaw in anything. He was careful to erase flaws, careful to only be his best. He looked in askance to Pierce, who was clearly waiting for him to puzzle it out. He wracked his brain, looking at his performance, his personality, his background and rolling it all over in his mind. Nothing in particular came glaring out to him.

“I don’t…”

Pierce just watched him with that usual keen gaze that seemed to pick out all the details that he missed even about himself. “You never trusted,” the ex-Secretary said simply but not unkindly. “Your view of the world aligned with HYDRA’s from a young age it seemed, but the world was something to keep at a distance. You played your role brilliantly, following orders, overriding those that you needed to, but on every appraisal that I’d watched of you, I saw your fault. You never had friends. You never stayed with a single woman long. You lived alone. You tethered yourself to a single cause, but it wasn’t to any one person that you pledged yourself to.”

Brock felt his jaw working, rolling over his defense quietly in his mind, ordering his words. He knew that it was all true, but he had been convinced he hid it well.

“Oh, your song and dance was well rehearsed, Brock,” Pierce said with a smile. The older man gestured to the asset who hadn’t moved a muscle until then and the weapon shifted with the cue from Pierce to settle at his elbow. “Your flaw was that you never trusted, and for you to have a break-through, you’d have to trust the asset, to share something personal with him, to give something personal back.”

He rubbed his rough jaw with his fingers, somehow keeping his gaze on Pierce who had always read him so well, always knew how to pick him apart and put him back together. The man was always in control, certain and willing to make decisions based on that certainty. He had a long way to go in order to be anything like Pierce.

“I trust the asset,” he finally said, though it was grudgingly. Like he was telling a secret that he had held onto for years of some old guilty action.

“I know, and he trusts you,” Alexander replied. “When Insight is complete and operational, you will be his full-time handler. I may not even return to him to cryofreeze.”

“But won’t his training…”

“No, he has a strong hand to guide him, to keep him in line, to keep his behaviour where it should be,” Pierce said with a smirk. “He’ll also be living with you by then. I hope you like roommates.”

Brock couldn’t help but feel his face screw up with indignity. He liked his personal space, even though his personal time was non-existent with all that he was currently participating in. He still had _his_ space when he needed it which included a small one-bedroom apartment, a bed of his own and the option to lounge on his own couch naked if he wanted to.

“Sir, with all due respect,” he started and followed after Pierce, ignoring the stink of the dead in the room or the clean-up crew that had arrived to dispose of the evidence of their activities here. “I live alone, and I always have.”

“Then it’s good that you have a few years to warm up to the idea of change, isn’t it?”

He frowned as they left the stinking room and proceeded to the stairs that would take them to the cordoned off street. “I don’t want to warm up to the idea. With all due respect, I would like to keep my privacy.”

“You had no problem with Scooter,” Pierce pointed out.

“Yeah well, I’m still washing dog hair out of the carpet,” he complained for the sake of complaining. The asset was a man, not a dog.

Alexander paused beside the expensive vehicle that the man owned, the door already ajar waiting for the Secretary to enter inside. He felt himself being sized up. “I won’t order you this, but I want you to think about it all the same. If I’m to have him out of cryostasis, he needs a strong hand, someone who knows the signs and can keep him in line, give him the order he requires.”

Brock wanted to say that it would be better to just stuff the asset in cryostasis again and continue with the usual cycle, but he knew that to say that would damn him. He turned his head to regard the Winter Soldier, and he grunted in acknowledgement in that he would think about it.

“I’m not picking his hair out of my shower drain,” he growled.

“Well, you’ll have a few years to get used to that idea too,” Pierce replied and gestured for the asset to climb inside. The weapon went without a glance at them. “Just as you’ll have to figure out where to put a second dresser for his clothes.”

He liked this idea less and less, and he knew that it was only going to get worse. He only said that he would consider it, not that he would agree to it. “You realize that two adult men living in a one-bedroom apartment is going to create questions.”

Alexander seemed to take his pointed observation with a benign smile, and he slipped into the car to take the seat opposite to the asset. “He looks enough like you that I’m sure you could call him a distant relative,” Pierce finally said as they were all in the vehicle. “Perhaps a cousin?”

It was still going to raise questions where he lived, but he knew better than to protest. That was years away and there would be so many bodies in the streets when Insight was up that he could move easily to somewhere new, somewhere bigger. It wasn’t like the asset would take up room, but it was more trying to keep the weapon to acting ‘normal’ when people could watch. No roosting in the windows or lurking in corners.

There was time to consider all that later, and he couldn’t get distracted. A distraction could get him killed and he was seriously trying to avoid that.

For the next year, he and the asset spent more time together than he had in his previous years. When the asset was awake, he was present. When the asset was being put into cryostasis, he was present. In that time, he still hadn’t had the pleasure of the Winter Soldier being wiped let alone having his finger on the button to do so. He figured that it would eventually happened, yet Pierce and he together could just reason out minor glitches with the Soldier. Sometimes it just took some words or a smack, but those were minor occasions. If anything the asset was in pique performance.

The battle of New York put everyone, Pierce included on guard. He was given his assignment to deal and assess Rogers’ threat level, and that ate up what little time he had left to be outside of work. He wasn’t resentful at all. It gave him something to do while occupying space and payroll at SHIELD, though at first Rogers wasn’t around much, generally getting up to speed with some low-life who Fury had thought was a worthwhile find.

His first impression of Steve Rogers was a smart guy who was standing in the middle of a sinking ship but didn’t yet know it. The man was polite, attentive, intelligent, and had a dry sense of humour that made Rogers likeable and easy to follow. The guy had a hard-head but not the type of man who could not be reasoned with, though if a certain way was clear to the man, that was the way that they were going to go. It was clear that Rogers was out of time, but Captain America was everything the old files, papers, videos and magazines told of him. If anything, the man’s presence back then was under-represented.

Brock was introduced along with all the other STRIKE team leaders and soon after that each of the STRIKE teams. It was supposed to be one of those big days where everyone ‘ooo’d and ‘awww’d about the big man in the building. He hadn’t, but the firm hand-shake and his smirk seemed to have disarmed a little of the formality of the situation. He had a mission to think about, and it certainly wouldn’t happen in a stuffy room full of testosterone.

Like always, he found an opportunity the next day to approach a guy who looked both completely comfortable and so out of place in the Triskelion. It was standard for most units to at least spend some part of the day training, since they were physical units that were deployed and were expected to keep to the best of physical shape. Early morning drills were usually the way to go, and he wasn’t surprised to find Rogers down there before anyone else. In fact, the guy looked to have been there at least half an hour already.

He approached until he could come around, his knuckles taped up before his hands set on the punching bag that Rogers happened to be wailing on. He kept the bag from flying backwards, allowing Rogers to hit it harder. “You gonna let the bag live to see another day, big guy?”

Captain America paused between punches to regard him. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“You sound like a government employee already racking up the bills,” he replied with a cheeky grin. Rogers offered a soft smile in return and set back up to return to punching. “We met yesterday, but then again, you met a lot of people yesterday…”

“You’re Brock Rumlow, commander of the STRIKE alpha unit, right?” Never let anyone think there were any blond moments in this guy because Rogers was a sharp as a tack. It made his job of double-agent exhilarating to say the least. “Were you army before you joined up? You walk and shake like a military man.”

Brock shrugged his shoulders helplessly before he held up his taped up palms on either side of the bag he had been holding as if to ask for mercy. “Would you like me to untape my hands so you can read the length of my life line on my palms or are you just going to keep talking my life story from looking at me?”

“Sorry,” came the sheepish reply.

He had to laugh at receiving any kind of apology when he was going to be one of the men that brought Rogers down in the future. If anything, it should be him apologizing. “Whoa big guy, you never have to apologize to me. And call me Rumlow; everyone else does.”

Steve nodded and smiled at him again, that nice easy smile that came from men who were comfortable in their own skins and recognized someone of similar training and perhaps background. “I get the feeling we’re going to be working together a bit now.”

“You can hope so, since not everyone around here has my type of class and sense of fair play,” he replied with a brief playful wink. “Do you want to spar?”

He could see Rogers hesitate but recognized it would be rude to refuse so soon after he had purposefully come around to make contact, introduce himself again, rub shoulders and attempt to be a good co-worker. He also knew from working with the asset that Rogers out-classed him physically and the Captain recognized that as well. It left for an interesting silence of being sized up. Rogers was clearly trying to decide how to hold back to not kill him outright in any kind of sparring, but he had more than his share of surprises and none of them had anything to do with a sense of fair play.

“I… yes, alright,” Steve finally said, apparently unable to think of an excuse not to spar.

Brock eased away from the boxing bag and padded off to where the sparring mats were laid down on the ground. By now, a few other agents had come in for their morning exercise but were drawn from the scene unfolding as Captain America followed him up onto the mats. He ignored the people that started to drift closer to get a better look, though he saw the looks of skeptism of his chances. Rogers obviously knew them as well and peered at him to see how he would react.

“Fight to a tap out?”

“That’s fine,” Rogers agreed easily.

“We can fight to first blood like the old days if you’d prefer?” He figured that making age jokes was an easy way to work his way in deeper, to keep thing amicable.

“I think that was the Middle Ages,” Steve said dryly.

“You’d know,” Brock replied cheekily, earning him a smile and a shake of the head from Rogers. “First blood or tap out?” He knew which Rogers would prefer, but he had his own plans on the matter. “Let’s make it interesting and do first blood.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” Rogers said wearily.

“Come on, I’m not going to break in half.” Actually, if Captain America fought for real, there was a chance that he might. He wasn’t planning on letting it go that long, just enough to get buddy-buddy with his new assignment. “All you have to do is cut my lip or something. I know you can do it.”

So did everyone else in the room who had gathered up and was watching with strange fascination. Everyone knew that he was good at fighting, but history told them that Rogers was extremely good at fighting and was physically better suited to power through pretty much anything. The men were also making wagers, and he noted that Rollins was watching from the back. The man wasn’t a gambler, but there were enough whispered wagering going on that he knew his odds weren’t that good. Rogers probably knew it too with that enhanced hearing and all.

Brock took the initiative and set himself in the ring, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a boxer to loosen up his legs. He set his taped up fists in front of him, giving a few practice punches to the air to ease up his shoulders and arms, though he had warmed up before he had ever considered coming into the exercise area for training. He rolled his shoulders and dropped down to the flat of his feet.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

At first, they simply circled each other, making a few feigned motions or testing punches just to get an idea of what the other could do. He liked that Steve was weary but confident, but he played it safe to keep out of the other man’s longer reach and greater height. No one in the crowd said anything to get them going either; there was more at stake here than Rogers probably realized.

It was Steve that stepped in first and took a swing at him for real, but Brock danced away from it. However, Steve kept coming, chewing up the distance and using very well placed hooks and jabs to test his defenses, but he knocked each aside or allowed them only to glance off of his forearms. It was clear that Steve was holding back strength and speed wise, clearly not wanting to overwhelm him.

It was such a gentleman thing to do. Brock hated it immediately; he wasn’t babied with the asset, and he wouldn’t be babied here despite this being a first meeting. However, he wasn’t reckless.

He waited, using footwork to get him out of the way most of the time, letting Steve take the offensive until he saw a quick opening and took it. He stepped in at the high swinging punch that Rogers aimed at his head, ducking slightly as he moved in under the man’s range and slammed his fist hard into Steve’s ribs. He barely escaped the return punch, feeling it hit his forearms and knew he would bruise from it.

Still, Rogers eyed him with new appreciation. His hit was more like a mosquito on a horse as far as damage went, but it was a warning that he was dangerous. He knew how to fight and while Steve had the advantage in almost every way physically, he liked to consider himself a threat all the same.

When Steve stepped in to jab at him, Brock eased around it and finally took the offensive. His right arm shot up to knock aside the left that Rogers aimed at him to drive him back and swung low with his left. It was blocked, but he swung out a leg to trip Rogers up and suddenly they weren’t boxing anymore. He drew his left leg up sharply to avoid Steve’s return attempt to trip him, and he drove his fist into the man’s chest as he took a blow to his shoulder. They drew apart with the momentum of their separate blows.

He circled, throwing a punch that was knocked aside, and he suddenly had to side-step a fast well-placed trip attempt. They circled again before he was forced backwards as Rogers moved to grab him, no doubt for some strength-based pinning. He immediately stepped in to try to land another set of punches on Rogers, but both were deflected.

However, instead of moving away, he closed the distance with full awareness that it was probably one of the more dangerous places to be. They both set off an exchange of punches on each other, and he blocked as much as he received to his shoulders, arms and chest. However, he was relentless with his own blows, landing as many as he took to Steve’s trunk and even knocked his fist hard on the man’s hip.

Then Steve gave him a hefty shove and caught one of his ankles with a well-placed foot, forcing him to tumble backwards. He kept rolling though until he set his hands to the mat and used the momentum to get back up and set his weight on the balls of his feet. Once he was balanced, he shoved off and charged Captain America in a suicidal run.

Brock ducked the swinging punch but the second upper cut caught his jaw and knocked against his teeth, and by some miracle the flesh of his lip held together. His hand closed on Steve’s tight training shirt as he launched at the other man. The Captain clearly thought it was some strange attempt to climb up the height difference and caught some of his weight in preparation to either lock him in or toss him aside.

He swung his head up and purposefully impacted Steve’s nose with his forehead. There was a sudden warm spray of blood on his cheek, and Rogers made a soft sound of surprise rather than pain, though it probably stung to be head-butted in the nose. Steve released him and he backed away as the taller man mopped at the bleeding nose with taped palms.

The spectators began to grumble at the money lost except Rollins who apparently had been smart enough to bet odds on him. There was a reason the big man was his second in command.

“I didn’t break it, did I?”

Steve seemed rather unconcerned with the blood and was instead eyeing him with a new found appreciation. “No, just blew a bunch of blood vessels with that stunt.”

“All’s fair in love and war, Cap,” he replied with a smirk. He grabbed a clean towel and wiped the blood from his cheek before offering it to Rogers. “I think you’ll live and keep your pretty face.”

“As long as I get to stay beautiful,” Steve replied, eyebrows rising in what was probably indicating a smile under that towel mopping up blood. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

Brock smirked and winked at his new pet project. “Come on, Cap, I can’t tell you all my secrets on the first formal meeting or I’d become endlessly uninteresting to you.”

“Well, it certainly isn’t your roguish good looks that will keep me coming back for sparring, that’s for sure,” Steve quipped back to him. It was not a shock to him to see the bleeding had stopped and aside from some snorting from Rogers, the man was probably ready to kill an army.

“You’re a cocky asshole, grandpa,” Rumlow snapped but with a smirk.

“Son, you have no idea,” Steve replied with a far more boyish smile than should be possible on a man that age.

It was that kind of attitude, the easy banter, the intelligent conversation that degraded into soldierly ribbing that made Rogers very easy to get along with. It also made the man extremely dangerous, and Brock vowed from then on that he would always, always be on his guard with the man. Pierce was barking up the wrong tree keeping this guy alive, but he knew his report would mean very little with the asset ready to kill on a single word.

Only he wondered if that was one order the asset wouldn’t carry out. Rogers would always be a problem to contend with.

***

Steve was spending long hours dealing with the First National bank and had all week since it had turned into such a hotbed of HYDRA information and equipment. The fact that it was in one of the oldest banks of America had caught a lot of the public’s attention and raised even more questions about security and just how a German-based society could infiltrate the very fabric of American society. It had turned that situation into a political circus, and it left Captain America exhausted at the end of the day.

Of course, end of the day was long after dark and then Steve was up again early in the morning with an apologetic look and a reminder to eat. The last six days had been spent mostly alone but also out of the apartment more than he was in it. Without Steve, there was nothing to tie himself there and so he drifted.

The Winter Soldier had lurked after Jack Rollins had been released, but Rumlow had not appeared and it seemed that Rollins had just wandered away. His tracking of the man had led him no where productive and there had been no urging to kill the old scarred man. He had his own little killing ground when the clenching of his chest or the emotions in his head became too much. It was far less high profile then if he took Jack Rollins apart at the seams and would cast doubt on Steve’s ability to control him, perhaps even expose him to the public.

He now wandered, going to the places where he found a sense of calm. He had visited the Veteran Affairs building once more to spend time with the amputees, but he had trouble focusing on the game of cards. There had been a new man hanging around chatting up Denise, but he had felt that the man’s attention had flicked to him more than was appropriate. He knew the sensation of being studied and watched after all.

Were all the good things that he had found going to be taken away from him? Steve with work, the VA with strangers, the apartment where he felt safe? It was his ragged emotions playing up, picking on simple things that built up one on top of the other.

He had left the apartment over an hour ago when his emotions threatened to overflow, but for the first time, he had laid them down in a vaguely constructive manner. It hadn’t solved the entirety of the problem, but he had done it and admitted it hadn’t been half bad. He could see why Steve had pushed at him the last while to do something constructive. He still needed to get some fresh air, to move his body, to work off energy and avoid another break-down. They were threatening more and more lately.

He needed control of his life. Steve was right. Control and order.

The Winter Soldier went to the park that he and Steve had begun to frequent, Anacostia, which gave him a view of the Potomac. He liked looking out on the water; he found it both peaceful and invigorating to view the place where he had stepped up to seize his freedom. This was one place that, while not entirely safe, it still represented his freedom more entirely.

Upon stepping into it, he noted a few parked police cars and a sign stating that a police training exercise was underway in a cordoned off area. The sign didn’t detail the reason for the exercise, but he found it suspicious as to why training would occur in a very public park. However, he faulted no one for training, least of all real-world exercises. It was just bothersome that it happened to be occurring in the park that he spent some time in, but he would keep to himself as long as he could slip down to sit at the edge of the Potomac.

Stuffing his hands deeper into the pockets of his burrowed and slightly too large jacket, he dipped his head to avoid looking at a group of mothers and their prams marching together in some late afternoon walk. They paid little to no attention to him as he stepped off the path they were treading on, and their children certainly weren’t old or wise enough to provide a response in him tied in to their prams as they were. The women themselves chatted and held themselves well, confident and self-assured.

No threat.

He padded across the grass, spotting a few police officers some distance away near a forested area going over some kind of plans. There was another office by the parked cruisers using a radio, looking to be arguing. He had perhaps arrived before the full training exercise was about to begin. That might mean he could slip to the water and avoid the entire thing to be by himself and have some much needed peace.

“Hey Jake, get over here,” came a call from the officer by the parked cruiser, too far away from him to be of any threat. The guy was calling to someone coming from the trees. “Commander wants a word before we start.”

He lifted his head so that the visor of baseball cap rose enough to peer as a young officer walked passed him towards the call, but something in the bearing had him raising his head entirely. He knew that mop of hair, though it took him a moment to place it as anything that should be worthwhile of his notice. By the time he had started to narrow down the places and details, the young man’s head turned as they passed each other.

It was that man who had been walking with Rumlow on the day that he had been so thoroughly rebuffed. It was the man who had given Steve the information on the bank. It was someone from HYDRA. What had Steve said the young man’s name was… Jake Minou?

Their gazes met as they passed each other, and his lip curled in a silent snarl. If this man was here, Rumlow would be here or would be so much closer to his reach if he tortured the handler’s whereabouts out of this man. He _needed_ Brock, and he needed the handler right now, though he refused to consider that it might be for something other than skinning the last threat to him alive.

“Holy shit!” Jake Minou couldn’t suppress the real terror that contorted those young features as he charged, closing the distance but alerting the two officers some distance away to his presence.

His punch was low, catching the thin punk at the sternum and sent the man flying. There was a sickening crunch, but he was prowling across the distance as the brunette landed and immediately tried to scramble up, crawling away from him as he closed, screaming and drawing attention. For once, he didn’t mind the sound; for once, it made his blood sing hot in his veins.

“No, no, no,” came the panicked cry from Jake.

The Winter Soldier moved with fluid deadliness, only missing his next punch to his target’s head because the brunette fell down and scrambled across the grass towards the tree line, looking very much like a scuttling insect. The fingers of his right hand closed on his knife as he brought it to his grip, but his gaze flicked to the two officers yelling at him to stand down and running at him.

He could have this done before they were in close enough range to be a concern to him, though it would be difficult to explain if shots were fired. A quick assessment of his situation showed him to be far too exposed in the open, and worse the women were witnesses to the start of this mayhem. He had to control the situation and that unfortunately meant that he couldn’t gut Jake here on the grass and demand information on Rumlow.

So, despite his need for blood, he let Jake hobble and scramble off towards the trees. He followed, ignoring the two officers closing the distance because he was confident that once he was in the trees that there would be no disturbances. He instead let the blood pound in his ears, his emotions running hot and high as he followed the frightened victim who would finally lead him back to the source.

Back to Rumlow who had _abandoned_ him to this existence of fighting for control. There were no crisp clean orders in his life right now. He needed it to stop the killing, to stop from crying for help in the only way he knew how… killing was all he had, it was all he had been reduced to. And Rumlow knew it and had rejected him with indifference.

No longer. Today he would see this through to the end. He’d kill the handler and be free.

As soon as Jake, still yelling and gasping, slipped behind the first tree, he darted in, finding the man sobbing in a bush. He hauled the brunette out and slammed the young man into the nearby tree. They looked physically to be the same age.

Jake was beside himself in fear though. “No, no, no, he said…!”

“Where is Rumlow,” he hissed, cutting off the potential for a tirade. “Tell me where to find him.”

The young man blubbered, clearly having never expected to become a victim of his violence. The crying only made him want to cut the man to little pieces, slowly with a warm hand over his own. “He…! He…!”

“Where,” he demanded, shaking the dressed officer like a dog would shake a cat’s neck to break it.

The Winter Soldier suddenly stilled where he stood, noting that the time between when he had disappeared into the trees and the distance to those two officers running had surely been covered. They should have been here by now. His eyes instead darted to the insignia on Jake’s upper arm, noting it was a police unit but instead of the stitches that would display the city it was from only read _‘Hail HYDRA’_ in the same blocky text.

And he understood. There was no police exercise; this was a set-up to draw him in.

His metal fingers clenched, pulling the sobbing young man from the tree so their faces were close together, ignoring the tears and snot that dribbled down the still terrified features. Their gazes met, Jake’s wide with fear and his lurking with predatory intent.

“Where is Brock Rumlow?”

“He’s…! He’s…!” He gave the man a little shake. “…here! He’s here!”

Of course he was. Rumlow would never miss this event, and he drew in a deep breath, holding it as a cold calm replaced the desperate fury that had threatened to consume him. He released the young man before ending the sobbing as his right hand crossed his left and his knife slit the man’s throat.

Winter was coming. It had no mercy on anyone.

***

“The rabbit is out of the cage.”

“The jackal is in pursuit. We have witnesses. Orders?”

“Hold,” Brock said almost lazily as he sighted down the scope of his sniper rifle, picking out the confrontation beyond the tree line. Finally, that ass-picker Jake was going to serve a real purpose, and he enjoyed more that the kid had absolutely no idea that the shit stain was bait. “Carry on with the plan. Let the rabbit into the bush; jackal will pursue. Do not engage until they’re in the trees.”

Rollins shifted next to him, sighting down the rifle that the man held. They had prime position to track the progress of the confrontation. “Murphy, Juno, loop around and get those women to the parameter of the park.”

Rumlow didn’t override his second, his rifle instead following the pair into the trees, but it was unfortunate that some foliage blocked a clear view. He shifted to see if he could get a better view point, but it was as little better. He could tell the asset was demanding answers, but it seemed that all the acting skills that Jake had evaporated when the kid was the real target instead of just having to act when he was.

“Assemble the unit,” he told Rollins next to him.

“You mean the assholes you don’t like?”

Brock snorted and glanced at his second. “I’m not gay… there isn’t an asshole I do like, Jackie. Would you have preferred I said ‘get the cannon fodder in line’?”

“There better be explosions, or you owe me a beer,” Rollins replied before the man called in the new order. The asset was finished with Jake; too bad the idiot hadn’t suffered more.

“We still wagering fifty bucks on my success?”

“No, I’m not losing my prison money to a dickbag like you, Rumlow.”

“Were you always this much of a believer in me? Man, if I’d known, I’d have made a fanclub for you to join up,” Rumlow said with a chuckle before he packed up his rifle now that the asset had disappeared into the trees. No doubt coming their way.

Rollins was already pushing up and out of the old oak that they had stationed themselves in. “We’ve got work to do.”

“I don’t hear any screaming yet,” he replied as he hustled his way down the tree, his rifle swinging against his back as he moved down to the forest floor.

Once on the ground, he waited and listened to the quiet conversation of well-trained men setting up their coordinates before going silent. The men here needed visuals but otherwise moved silently through the trees, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. This was the kind of scene that played heavily on the asset’s skills, not that he had informed the unit that he had brought together such a thing. They were expendable, people that HYDRA could do without. He had gathered them for their unique contacts, not their personal skills at handling a situation like the one he was sending them into.

 _“Visual…”_ There was radio silence to follow.

“Was that Riley?” Rollins glanced at him as they slowly began making their way towards the walking path.

“‘Was’ is probably accurate,” he replied, his boots making no noise as he placed them on the dry leaves.

“Should we go check it out?”

“Yeah, I need to get close for this. Cover me.”

Suddenly up head on the path one of his unit stepped out to indicate to the right, but he knew that he had placed most of his men to the left, to sweep in when the odds were more in their favour and a visual was acquired on the Winter Soldier. There was the occasional soft snap of a twig or the brush against a bush that he could pick out. Some of the men were not up to date with stealth missions.

He shifted on the path, pulling up his sniper rifle as he moved quickly but quietly. However, before he had gone more than ten feet, the sound like a wounded elephant came from the right and all guns pointed in that direction, his own included.

Riley, stumbling without coordination, smacked into a few trees, moaning and with arms flailing. It was the blood that ran down the man’s cheeks and chin that alerted Rumlow that the Soldier had arrived, and he motioned for Rollins to take position to get clear view of the wounded man. It was the other man higher on the path that got to Riley first.

“Jesus fuck, his eyes were cut out and…!” The grenade that the asshole Riley had been choking on that prevented speech previously went off, blowing the two to pieces. There was smoke and noise and tree leaves cast into the air the type of chaos the Soldier thrived in.

Rollins was firing through the smoke and the most of the unit had made it to the area right on time, right as he had planned them to. He fired two shots from his rifle slightly to the right, catching a single flicker of black amid the smoke and leaves. He doubted that he hit anything, but he savoured being in action again. He was either going to live to see this crazy plan work or not give a shit when it was over. Win-win in his books.

The asset hadn’t brought any guns. Wherever Riley’s had gone, the Soldier wasn’t apparently in charge of it. No doubt pleased that the explosives expert had smuggled a couple of grenades on the mission. Another explosion blew a hole in the path directly ahead and then another further up beyond his visual, but he knew the Soldier was setting the stage and environment as an ideal killing ground.

Brock turned his head slightly when there was an explosion of gunfire and both he and Rollins fired there, but the smoke made it impossible to see. Another gun began to fire up ahead, and he moved forward towards it in time to catch sight of the asset tackling the other agent into a bush. There was a scream that was abruptly cut off before he had even fired into the mess, but he approached carefully all the same.

“Rumlow!”

It was tribute to his training and his complete acceptance of the idea that he might be killed that kept him on task. He fired a single shot that was deflected before the asset’s strong grip curled around his middle as he was tackled over. He shifted, wedging his rifle against the asset’s chest and his feet up on the Soldier’s hips before shoving with everything that he had. He grunted at the resistance from the grip to his own body as his back hit the ground and the asset flipped off of him to skid down the path a few feet.

There was a brief cloud of red from the asset’s left thigh that indicated that Rollins’ shot had hit the mark. The Soldier seemed no more aware of it than if someone had pissed on his shoe. Rumlow abandoned his rifle; it wasn’t designed for close-range.

Rumlow flipped onto his stomach, pressing his hands to the ground and pushing himself up, eyeing the Soldier as the asset watched him. The predator lurked there, forefront, brutal and unyielding yet slightly mad. He got to his feet carefully as they faced off.

“You’re still mine,” he murmured into the smoke and residual gun powder. He slowly shifted, but he was ever aware of his pistol in the holster against his thigh. “Come on now, come to me,” he cooed, taking a small step forward, his hands outstretched, fingers gesturing calmly and slowly to draw the asset in to him. “We’re still a team, you and I. Come on now… easy does it.”

For a moment, he thought he had the Soldier already with the flicker of longing and grief that overtook those blue eyes, far more expressive now than when he had last seen them. He gestured again and the asset took a minute step towards him, drawn to him as the Soldier was drawn to Rogers. Just a little closer… all he needed was to get control of the situation, get a hand on the weapon and…

“Son of a bitch! Here!”

The spell was broken at the shout and the Soldier twisted aside from the sudden firing of bullets. There was a sudden scream and the sound of more guns going off, but he simply glanced at Rollins and shook his head as he drew out his pistol and turned to stalk into the bushes. It really was a horribly place to have a close-quarters fight in.

He was in time to see the asset rip a gun away from one of his men and blow the man’s head apart before twisting it around and shooting another. He fired at the exposed back, but the asset blocked with a metal elbow before disappearing behind a tree.

The smoke still lingered, but the breeze so close to the water had it thinning enough that it was only an annoyance rather than a detriment. What was left of his unit had moved into position and were prepared to engage the asset, though he left himself close to a tree to duck behind and knew that Rollins was heading to higher ground to get a visual while he stayed on the same level as the Soldier as his own source of bait.

The Winter Soldier didn’t come immediately for him. It was a testament to both the training, the longing he had seen and the idea that the asset wanted to save him, wanted to take time so he would suffer the longest. Damn if that didn’t almost give him an erection, but he couldn’t get that distracted.

Suddenly the battle and the grounds he had put them all in became the killing ground that he knew it was going to be. He knew the moment that the Soldier hit a good stride, but he also stepped into his own at the same time. This was now a battle of control, and he was determined to win it.

The narrowed path was a horrible spot, the footing uneven, but the Winter Soldier slipped between trees, jumped over bushes and even used the bodies of men he was stabbing to take a bullet from another nearby. Bodies were nothing more than other weapons to be employed; it was a beautiful way to fight, the smell of blood and death making the macabre dance all the more awe-inspiring with the occasional flash of blooded knife, the snap of an arm to wrestle a gun away from a dying falling soldier.

Two large steps covered the distance to another soldier reloading the automatic rifle, the asset seeming to cover the distance so easily. A slit throat, a spattering of blood and a body twisting away with a ruined face to lie down among the scrub bushes. Five of his men left, firing and desperate as their confidence disintegrated with the sudden deaths, the realization that what they faced was a weapon in the form of a man but nothing like they had faced. Rogers had limitations, a set code of values. The Winter Soldier was a horrible death.

He let the Soldier engage one of the last of his men, following the motions as the asset slid in like a wraith as Rumlow aimed for his own man. It was nothing personal, but he knew a direct shot would never hit. He fired into the man’s leg, the blast of blood doubling as the bullet left one leg and entered the one behind it. That was two bullets to that leg.

The Winter Soldier didn’t even have the decency to stumble. The Soldier instead moved on, jumping around trees and using branches to launch a kick into one of his unit trying to get a better position. Rumlow lost sight of the two as they tumbled into the bushes; there was only a moan of pain and then silence to indicate another of the useless fodder was dead. He fired into the bushes anyway, hoping to hit something other than a dead body but certain he had missed, certain the Winter Soldier was already gone.

To his right the last of his men fell with half a skull, the rest exploding outwards from a bullet at close range. There was a moment of silence, a moment when not even the birds dared to voice a warning cry. He raised his pistol at the shimmer of metal that was the only indication the rest of the Winter Soldier was about to follow, and he shot twice, hearing the sound of bullets impacting metal.

He twisted away immediately, the small sapling he had been in front of losing half of itself in the return fire. He didn’t waste time though, aware better than anyone that distance was being closed and turned enough to fire again, unloading another three bullets before he felt how much it was a waste to even try anymore. This was where he wanted them, sharing the opposite sides of the same tree. He swore he could hear the Soldier breathe, but it was probably just his own breath.

“You never lose your touch,” he murmured softly, aware that Rollins would have a bead on him. It was just him and the Soldier for now. “But you can never have control right now.”

There was a soft snap of a twig on the opposite side of the tree, the only indication that the Winter Soldier was listening. He was used to this kind of intimacy, this kind of situation where a force that was so out of control would slowly come down from that killing high or vast gaping confusion to listen to him. He always cleaned up the messes of other handlers.

“I brought these men for you,” he said, his voice dropping to a deeper soothing tone. “I gave you the environment, the opportunity to kill them. I gave you what you needed.” He stopped and listened, glancing from side to side to make certain the Soldier was not coming around to gut him like a slippery fish. “The alleyway, the gangs… I know those when I saw them. You were crying for help, for control that has slipped through your fingers as you slowly try to rehabilitate. Rogers doesn’t know, does he?”

“Don’t say his name,” the asset hissed from the other side of the tree. Well, he still had the weapon’s attention, just as he had planned. “You are nothing like Steve.”

Rumlow issued a soft throaty chuckle. “You’re right about that; I don’t pretend to be a good man. “

His proclamation was met with almost stubborn silence. It was different than the usual silence from the Soldier, full of tension and brimming with emotions. His charge really was in a bad way.

“Rogers gives you half of what you need, but he doesn’t know you like I do,” Brock whispered as if it were a great secret they were sharing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the asset’s head shift around to peer at him, and it was first contact. “You can’t escape what HYDRA made you, what you know deep inside the war let you become. You are good at killing; there is no enemy that can escape you when you set your mind to it.”

The asset’s jaw worked silently, watching him with a cold intensity that was far more Soldier than Barnes. He expected nothing less either.

Brock didn’t move a muscle, leaning against the tree but his head turned to peer at the asset as he was peered at in return. “I can help you,” he said, caressing the words like a promise. “I can be your order as I always was. I’m the only one left… you killed the other lesser handlers, but I’m still here. I’ll always be here for you.”

The Winter Soldier suddenly moved, curving around the tree with speed and intensity that came just before a violent kill. His shoulders slammed against the tree, and he tipped his chin up as a blooded knife pressed to his throat and a pistol pressed just under his chest armour. A single motion of either hand and he knew the Soldier would begin to take him apart at the seams.

“Me and Rogers, two opposite sides of the scale you’re standing on. You need both of us, and you know it,” he murmured, confident and without fear. “You tip to one side, he’s there for you, picking you up, giving you a normal life, an opportunity to be a man again. You tip to the other, I’m there to be the hand that guides you, to give you order in the chaos of this world, to accept that you need to kill and never hold it against you.”

“You abandoned me,” the asset accused him with almost sulky vehemence.

“You needed to realize that you had to have both of us to make this work,” he replied simply. The Winter Soldier flinched, shoulders sagging slightly.

It was progress, and he took that proverbial step forward like this was all just according to some plan he had long ago made. Really, the last month had been a lot of pulling shit out of his ass, making guesses on what was required, and it apparently had worked out pretty well so far. Now if only Rollins could keep the last men beyond the trees away and let him handle this.

The knife pressed harder into his throat, cutting skin and allowing blood to bead on the edge of the blade; shit, he hoped he wasn’t going to get hepatitis or something. He still slowly raised a hand, setting it on the asset’s hip first and then spidered his hand slowly higher and higher, the Winter Soldier frozen in both tension and anticipation. The knife pressed harder, so close to slitting his throat, but instead he made a soft comforting noise that still further action.

His arm tucked up under the asset’s arm, hooking his elbow there as his fingers reached and then settled on the back of his wayward charge’s neck. He gave a squeeze and a massage, and the Winter Soldier surrendered unequivocally.

“You were always mine from the first day I saw you,” he murmured as the knife slipped away from his throat. “Pierce knew it, and after the impression trials, we both knew it.”

“…Brock.”

“Have I ever done wrong by you?”

“No.” The Winter Soldier shifted, head bowed in plaintive submission. “I can’t leave Steve.”

Ah, he knew that little hitch was going to come up, and he had planned for it already. “You have to for a little while,” he said softly. “We need to get you back on track, and then you can engage him again. Once I know you’re trained and ready for action, you can contact him.”

Suddenly the asset tried to pull away from him, but his grip only tightened. “You’re going to wipe me, and I’ll be nothing.”

“No,” he said firmly. “You and I are perfect as we are now, and I won’t take away what you’ve gained or will gain in future. I never agreed with that technology.” He also hadn’t had the pleasure of his finger on the button, but he knew that was over now.

“Your word,” the Soldier replied firmly.

Brock chuckled softly, ignoring the wet sensation of blood sliding down his neck. “You have my word.”

“If you lie to me, I will skin you alive.” No doubt said because his charge realized that he was all there was to end the chaos and out of control emotions. “And I want contact with Steve.”

“After we get you retrained,” he agreed with a slow nod. He let the asset mull it over silently.

Rumlow knew better than to resist, had already known that Rogers would be something that needed to be contained. The Soldier would do it, set them on opposite sides of the scale and keep Steve from just firing off to ruin everything. The best he could hope for was that he kept control of the asset and the Soldier kept control over Rogers enough not to interfere with what had to be done. He put a lot of his money on the fact that Rogers _wanted_ the best for the Winter Soldier and because of that mentality, he thought that if Steve _saw_ progress, the man would not interfere with his business.

That would all have to happen after he had retrained the Soldier, which he knew would probably take months. There were a lot of emotions that the asset was dealing with, a lot of pressures and realities of the past that would interfere. He had to provide the blanket of absolute control first and then he could see the Soldier back along the path to becoming both a man and a living weapon.

“You’re going to come with me now,” he murmured, fingers massaging the back of the asset’s neck. “However, like all mission endings, it has to bring a certain appearance.”

The Winter Soldier looked apprehensive and then angry, but the asset didn’t shoot him in the gut, so that was progress enough for his taste. “What appearance?”

He was going to have to get used to the Soldier talking back to him, engaging him on a very different level, almost like his old unit. He trusted the asset, and he knew that his charge trusted him. “I’m going to make it look like we arrested you, so cuffs and getting in a cruiser. We’ll have to call people in to deal with the dead, but I’ll be taking you out of here to a safe place where we’ll have transport out.”

James Buchanan Barnes stared out at him for a moment, blue eyes sad as the man glanced over to the forest were birds had taken up a tentative song but the smell of blood, death and gunpowder still hung heavy in the air. “Yes… I should be arrested.”

“You did what I expected you to do,” Brock replied with a casual shrug. “I brought the fodder, and you removed it as you always do. There is no shame in that, but we have to keep up appearances.”

The Soldier nodded and slowly took a step back, pistol dropping to the path at their feet and knife shifting to be tucked away. It was surrender, the end to the violence, the return to his complete mastery of the weapon he had wielded for so many years. He slowly breathed a sigh of contentment as he released his grip.

They both froze and turned their heads at the sound of a low groan from one of the bushes nearby. Someone had gained consciousness and the older man in the police uniform crawled out from behind a tree bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound, leaving blood on the leaves and obviously dying. There was no hope for recovery.

Brock tugged off his leather gloves one-by-one, balling them up as he caught the Soldier’s eye. He slipped his right hand over that of the asset’s, their gaze glued together as he directed their hands to take hold of the knife again. He snuck his other arm around the asset’s waist, gloves still balled in his fingers.

“We do it together, hmm?”

“Like old times,” the Soldier replied softly. “But no longer for HYDRA.”

“You don’t have to hide who and what you are from me,” Rumlow murmured as they approached together.

“…the same goes for you,” the Winter Soldier replied. He blinked and snorted softly, silently agreeing when he never thought that he would.

Control and obedience. They had become more than handler and weapon. They had reached a point that went far beyond that, far beyond even where Alexander Pierce had managed to settle. They were a team without weakness; they were united in purpose. The only hitch to the plan would always be Steve Rogers.

“Rollins, give us ten,” he said into his communication unit before turning it off. It was as close to privacy as they could manage. He planned on showing the asset that they worked best together again.

***

Steve stepped into his darkened apartment and flicked on a light, dropping his keys into the bowl nearby and toeing off his shoes. He sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair as he padded deeper into the apartment. It was quiet and unoccupied, which he didn’t mind after the day that he had had.

SHIELD was still clearing a ton of evidence out of the bank that had been confirmed a major base of HYDRA occupation, and it was more work trying to get information on the ancient safety deposit boxes down there than anything. Most were listed to long dead patrons of the bank and should have been turned back to the bank to dispose of the contents. However one had been partially open, the lock so old by then and it had contained hard copies of HYDRA secrets.

Now they were stuck going through the list and getting court permission to have access to the old boxes to check for more information. There was also the issue of finding many cells down there, holding areas for prisoners and no doubt allies of HYDRA. Machinery, new and old was also down there, even a tank that looked suspiciously like something a man would fit into and be frozen in.

At first, it had seemed like the ultimate jackpot. Now it felt like some overwhelming curse. He was there to oversee operations and dictate which stuff was most important. A lot of people wanted to talk to him about what was going on, what had been found, was there danger. If he wasn’t hiding out in the bank wondering if Bucky had once been stuffed in that damaged tube, he was answering questions from all manner of government and military personnel.

A week of all that, and he was exhausted. He plunked himself down on the couch and just rested his head back on the cushion for a few moments. He really should get up and go to the gym, but it was getting on in the evening and he hoped that Bucky would drop in. His friend had been out of sorts since the bank had been found, and he understood that time and distance was probably required. Right now, he could really use the company.

“Ah Buck, you better not be playing a gargoyle somewhere near that bank,” he muttered to himself before finally shifting to sit up. No point worrying since his friend could take care of himself.

Instead, Steve reached out for the remote and flipped on the television. He was just in time to catch part of the local news. When was the last time that he had managed that? He draped his arm with the remote over the arm of the couch and relaxed, watching a silly commercial about toilet tissue.

Soon after the news came on, and he apparently had only missed the first story, which he could probably read up on in the paper later. He was trying to be better about keeping up with the times now that he wasn’t quite as suspicious that HYDRA was absolutely everywhere.

_”…afternoon, a violent incident at the Anacostia Park occurred involving a single suspect. Luckily a police training exercise was occurring and the officers were able to assist in the capture and detention of the man who was previously unknown to police…”_

Steve turned his head to regard the footage which was mostly a bunch of people standing around looking into a heavily forested area. He knew that park well, had ran in it when it needed to get a little further away from home. It was also the same park that gave a good view of the Potomac, one of his and Bucky’s favourite. While violence in Washington was common enough, he thought little of an incident in a park.

Instead he finally pulled out his phone and noted that he had a few messages. A few he knew where from technicians at the bank. One was from Sam and another was surprisingly from Tony. Odd, Tony didn’t generally call him or leave messages.

_”… officers in the area responded to a distress call while on training to a single white male giving chase into the woods of another man. The officers responded but they sustained heavily casualties in the incident. We aren’t certain the timeline of events, but it was very quick. There were reported shots fired…”_

He had just dialed to retrieve his messages when his phone slipped from his fingers at the sudden video footage of a young man in handcuffs being lead by police. There was a hood over the young man’s drooped head, but he would recognize that walk and that jacket anywhere. He knew because the jacket belonged to him.

“Bucky… no, what happened?”

The media had focused in on the single officer in a police uniform that was escorting his friend to a police cruiser and was pushed inside. For a moment, he thought that this was an incident that he could handle though questions stormed through his mind on how or why this had happened. A violent incident in a park… no, had Bucky lost control?

Then the officer in question, who had leaned into the cruiser to obviously say something to Bucky pulled out again and turned to the confrontation of cameras. With a thumb, the navy ballcap visor was pushed up and Steve found himself staring into the face of Brock Rumlow.

_”Back off, folks. The incident is over.” Rumlow said in that usual cocksure voice._

_“Officer, officer, can you tell us about the incident?” … “Do you know who the assailant is?” … “Can you give us details on the attack?” … “How many wounded, officer?”_

Steve could only watch in transfixed horror. He wanted to look away, wanted to get up and run to the park in question, but the timestamp indicated this had happened three hours ago.

_Rumlow raised gloved hands to wave the media away, smiling in a patient way. “I’m sorry, I can’t given you details as this incident is under investigation.” He shifted and shut the door to the cruiser, though Bucky had made absolutely no move to get out of it. “I can tell you that the assailant did attack officers on scene, but he eventually gave himself over to the proper authority willingly.” And here, now, Rumlow stared straight into the camera, straight at him. “He stood down and recognized the futility of his situation, and I can tell you, I personally took him in hand. He just needed the right kind of handling.”_

_There right at the end, right as the story was switched to another, Brock Rumlow flashed a slow triumphant smirk. At him. At the world. At SHIELD. At HYDRA. The Winter Soldier had been tamed._

Steve Rogers released a wordless cry and threw the remote control into the television set, unable to grasp the entirety of what had been stolen from him, what he had had so close and then have it ripped away. His television screen burst with sparks as the remote shattered into it, and he sat in shock before his head turned to regard the sketchbook he didn’t remember leaving on the coffee table.

Slowly, with trembling fingers, he picked it up and turned it over to reveal what he expected to be a blank page. It wasn’t. It was a crude sketch, rough lines and curves in dark pencil that had been pressed too hard into the paper. It was a picture of two men, two friends lounging together on the couch exactly like the one he currently sat on. One man was tall and built strongly, an arm curled around the shoulders of the other man who had dark deadly eyes and shoulder length hair. A metal arm, smooth and cold had been drawn curled around the waist of the larger man, fingers curled tight in.

The dark crude sketch blurred in his vision as he read the written words, scribbled and messy in a haphazard way that indicated not a hurry or a rush but a deep powerful emotion. Maybe even a memory.

“ _To the end of the line.  
Steve. James. 2014_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many, many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to keep up and read my work. I really appreciate it, and I'm so glad for this opportunity to get back into fanfiction. You're all going to keep me writing.


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